Evening News Ratings Up On Bad Economic News

NEW YORK — Tough economic news and the arrival of the Obama administration have helped bring more viewers to the broadcast evening news shows, a TV staple that's been written off many times in the past.

The ABC, CBS and NBC newscasts all hit ratings milestones last week.

The "CBS Evening News" had its biggest weekly average in two years and ABC's "World News" its largest in one year. The 11.5 million people who watched NBC's "Nightly News" last Monday was its biggest one-day audience in three years.

"Everyone has put the election behind and now it's (time for) solutions _ how bad is this and what are we going to do about it," said "Nightly News" executive producer Bob Epstein. "That really plays to the strength and definition of what our broadcast is and what all the evening news broadcasts are."

The "Nightly News" audience has been up 4 percent in the nearly two months since Election Day, compared to the same period the year before. Among the 25-to-54 demographic NBC considers most ideal, the audience is up 11 percent.

The NBC newscast, anchored by Brian Williams, has increased its working margin over Charles Gibson and "World News." The ABC newscast is down 2 percent from the previous year, while Katie Couric's "CBS Evening News" is up 3 percent during the same period.

Epstein said Williams has made it a point to concentrate on the economic story, and how it's affected viewers who don't necessarily work on Wall Street.

Oddly, these newscasts saw little benefit from the intense interest paid to the presidential campaign, at least in comparison to their cable cousins.

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CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, collectively, averaged 8.6 million viewers a night during the hottest stage of the campaign, in October. It was down to 4.3 million in December and 4.8 million in January, Nielsen said.

The opinionated talk shows on cable were well-suited to the campaign-obsessed, while now there's a need for hard information, Epstein said.

During last week, the first full week of the Obama administration, "Nightly News" averaged 10.3 million viewers (6.7 rating, 12 share), ABC's "World News" had 9.3 million (6.2, 12) and the "CBS Evening News" had 7.7 million (5.1, 9).

The Super Bowl and "American Idol" dominated the prime-time ratings last week. Nielsen said Tuesday the game between Arizona and Pittsburgh was the most-watched Super Bowl ever with 98.7 million viewers, revising an estimate from the day before by adding more than 3 million viewers.

The game led NBC to average 21.6 million prime-time viewers last week (10.3 rating, 16 share). Fox had 11.3 million viewers (6.5, 10), CBS 9.5 million (6.0, 10), ABC 5.8 million (3.7, 6), My Network TV 1.6 million (1.0, 2) the CW 1.5 million (1.0, 1) and ION Television 580,000 (0.4, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 4.2 million average (2.0, 3), Telemundo had 1.2 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura 570,000 (0.3, 0) and Azteca 150,000 (0.1, 0).

A ratings point represents 1,145,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.5 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Jan. 26-Feb. 1, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: Super Bowl XLIII: Arizona vs. Pittsburgh, NBC, 98.73 million; Super Bowl postgame show, NBC, 57.4 million; "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 27.36 million; "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 25.54 million; "American Idol" (Thursday), Fox, 24.61 million; "The Office" (Sunday), NBC, 22.91 million; "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 20.15 million; "NCIS," CBS, 19.2 million; "House," Fox, 15.69 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 15.23 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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On the Net:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com

Comments

[firstandlast]

By 2010, sc um ba g Obama will be lucky if the American people allow him to finish out the rest of his first 4 and only 4 years in offrice. Even Lib erals will not be du mb ehough to vote a Lib eral again. Besides, right now President Pelosi won"t let her flu nky pu ppet boy Obama do anything anyway. Lib erals get into politics, because they were to du mb to make money on the outside. The only thing Liber als have ever known how to do is go get free money from successful people and then spend it st upidly. None of them actually know how to make money, just st eal it and wa ste it.

[orangeyouglad]

Wow...first off,you don't have to push the space button in the middle of words.It generally makes them look funny.Secondly,calling someone a 'flunky puppet boy" sounds pathetic and archaic.Third,liberals don't 'get free money from successful people and then spend it stupidly' We have taxes and you are supposed to pay them for a reason,everyone is supposed to contribute in one way or another.Now the way our tax system is set up is so your taxes are based upon your income.So you pay in proportion to what you make.

You sound like a very bitter,unintelligent,bigot who needs to get their facts straight and learn how to type.

[Tulka2]

Wow. I would bet money you don't have a job.

[Razorbazk2005]

hahahahahaha.... I love your jokes... You're such a bitter r%%neck. I pitt your ignorance. My only response to you is "8 Years."

[greginwva]

I dont think the GOP can rebound in 8 years despite the foolish talk of momentum coming out of CNN talking fools.They had a choice of two bigots a black guy who cheated Kerry out of a win in Oh. in 2004 and another black guy who responded to Barack's congrats with "how ya like me now" for the RNC head.They have a house leader who actually said they coulnd vote for a bill because pelosi hurt their feelings. These people may feel emboldened but that wont last.These guys are the real deadenders.

[Cunningham]

LOL! You Bushies sure are funny crit.ters. Your il.k has called Obama the puppet of George Soros, Rahm Emanuel, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CFR, and now Nancy Pelosi. You're hilarious.

[postman606]

Your mom know you're still up? Most juvenile post of the night, get some sleep kid, you don't know what you're talking about.

[dfortruth]

We the people, have under estimated the power we really have. that means we can shut them down

We have cut back on unnecessary spending, look like we now need to cut back on these media outlets.If they want to keep bringing the rethugs before us to complain, then we must remind them that it was Obama we voted for.

Maybe we should shut them out for a week or so. After all they get all their news from the blogs, we can read for ourselves.

What happen to the real journalist? Do we now live in Cuba?

Matthews is a joke = no balls

Morning Joe = a joke, it's hard to watch him a keep a straight face.

Fox = well they only do what foxes are suppose to do.

all the leftover journalist from different whitehouses, pushing their talking points.

selling their ideas and thoughts to the people.

they treat us like idiots

[SouthPrairie]

Obama IS change I can BELIEVE IN. When is the last time we have had a leader that has outright taken responsibility for his mis-steps. And this is when it is not REALLY a mis-step of Obama's, but more a mis-step of his staff--ummmm....dare I say....CHIEF OF STAFF!! After all who is in charge of the vetting process. There were plenty of red flags from what I have seen.

I think one of the main criteria for a position on the Obama team should be REFLECTION!! An ability to hold YOURSELF accountable and BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE.

This is something that Corruptlicans absolutely CANNOT DO.

Obama is a leader and most of the crusty old men in DC have no idea how to follow. All they know how to do is fleece and menace. That's it. It will take some time. It will take some tick...tick...tick...time.

Let Obama Lead
Plant the change seed!!

[firstandlast]

Obama is a sc rew up. What is so amazing about a sc rew up admitting he is a sc rew up?

Change you can believe in,

Obama appoints nothing but cor rupt old timer tax ch eats, in siders and Washington DC good old boys. Make sure the insiders and good old boys don't change anything. Liberal voters are to stup id to even see they have been co nned, let alone admit the mistake they made by getting co nned by and voting for Obama the sn ake oil sal esman.

[billthinx]

K-K-K-Katie needs to bag the butch haircut. Ugh.

[Brillig]

No big texas mall hair anymore...that is as out as big boobs (to the discerning eye)

[mcfried]

The GOP slant of the major news channels over the last couple of days is getting annoying. I'm not sure why these journalists take such pains and give them excessive amounts of time and repeat ad nauseum their talking points. The economy is in the toilet and tax cuts have failed, the war in Iraq has cost billions in dollars and countless lives. The media was complicit in these failures - they refused to acknowledge a problem in the economy before we were completely scre.wed (no use of the word recession for almost a year, selling Bush's the economy is in good shape argument) and only after years of the war did they admit there were no weapons. The MSM continues to either work for the GOP or trust their word despite them being untrustworthy - in which case they are either immoral or stup!d or both. Questioning the new president is fine but giving 70% of the coverage to the incompetent and murderous GOP is unforgivable. I'm sick of them.

[mcfried]

Sorry for the repost seems to be a moderation issue.

[billthinx]

Absolutely agree. The media are obsessed with the Repubs. And why? Because the only way they get ratings is to create the illusion of a horse-race about everything political. They definitely give the Repubs credibility they haven't earned based on the past 8 years and the results of the past election. Repubs and their failed ideologies are the past. Move on would you!!!!!!!

[Badger84]

Thanks for the reality check. The major channels have virtually turned over the microphones to neocon critics of the stimulus bill. People are tuning in because they are legitimately concerned about their financial well-being and they get propaganda that is never questioned. I support the president but I always believed that without media reform, it would be nearly impossible to put his programs into effect.

[mcfried]

The GOP slant of the major news channels over the last couple of days is getting annoying. I'm not sure why these journalists take such pains and give them excessive amounts of time and repeat ad nauseum their talking points. The economy is in the toilet and tax cuts have failed, the war in Iraq has cost billions in dollars and countless lives. The media was complicit in these failures - they refused to acknowledge a problem in the economy before we were completely scre.wed (no use of the word recession for almost a year, selling Bush's the economy is in good shape argument) and only after years of the war did they admit there were no weapons. The MSM continues to either work for the GOP or trust their word despite them being untrustworthy - in which case they are either immoral or stup!d or both. Questioning the new president is fine but giving 70% of the coverage to the incompetent and murderous GOP is unforgivable. I'm sick of them.

[MuchMadness]

I miss the old days when everyone got TV by a rooftop antenna.

[em3]

This past week, Katie and her CBS Evening News seem to have taken a Republican slant. Maybe I'm overly sensitive to media being inaccurate about the Stimulus Bill. But CBS seems to be spending a lot of time explaining and defending the Republican position.

[Carsy]

I am a bit sensitive to any news as well. Katie I think does her best to stay unbiased, but she has a boss as well, and ultimately they write her cheque.

[ImpalaSuperSport]

I thought Katie was pregnant with the preznit's baby!

[billthinx]

The bias is in choosing what stories to cover, who to interview, what positions to highlight, what spin to use in their headlines, etc. Again, they're trying to keep the horse race going despite Obama's and Democrats' overwhelming victory. Illusion of a horse race = potential for attention and possible ratings. All this is overt manipulation of credulous viewers who don't know it and don't resist being spun by the mainstream media. The founders of this nation would be appalled at the low content that passes for political education.

[MyTake]

With all the people becoming unemployed and being at home now, the corporate controlled media should offer those affected people free large screen TV's which will bump up their ratings even further.

If the corporate media would stop spewing out lies and spin from their news casts and if those talking bobbing heads had any psychological understanding of what they were reading off that teleprompter then the ratings would go up dramatically.

[mellene]

The scare tactics have really done a number on the public. As long as they keep hearing the sky is falling, we'll keep seeing more and more lay-offs. The stimulus if it passes will only help 1% of the rich the way it's going. I don't hold out any hope with the lame congress that we'll have anything but warmed over Bush policies.

[grumbles]

People are sick to death of the carping and faulty analysis of the cable networks. They all behave like tabloids. Straight, unadulterated news where you couldnt guess the political affiliation of the news reader. Just the facts and you decide. WHAT A CONCEPT!!!!!

[Carsy]

Great post, that is exactly what I was thinking, that the ratings increase in nightly news is because all Katie, Brian and Charlie do is read the news, just state the facts and let people decide for themselves. They don't mention if they voted for Michael Steele or not.

[billthinx]

It is incredibly weak to rely on trusting any anchor person for your news. The anchors are really highly paid actors who "read" the news which is written for them. They like to pretend to be important journalists but their journalistic independence is limited. They represent big corporations (entertainment companies) which are focused on earnings. As such, they're just like any other employee: doing what they're told to do for the company's benefit. Just because you like Katie doesn't mean you're getting the whole story, an accurate story or even the right story. You're getting what the company thinks will sell (i.e., get attention) that evening. It's certainly more "fair and balanced' than the Fox bias, but you might want to read more and track perhaps a dozen news organizations to be better informed.

[x004Ronin]

I hope this shuts up the FoxNews fans who go, "FoxNews beats CNN and MSNBC therefore it's proof people want conservative news!"
Katie Couric alone gets more than FoxNews.

[indyleftist]

When will they get around to changing the TV ratings system?

Because they are completely inaccurate the way they are done now.
Ratings are still based on the Neilson boxes which rely on volunteers. Only old people and middle class families volunteer. So the numbers are skewed towards programing that they like

Since all TV is digital now, it would be very easy to compile accurate data on what people watch, infact they probably already do. However they refuse to release the real data because they don't want advertisers to find out how often people change the channels during commercials

Radio ratings are even worse. They don't even have boxes. I suppose they just guess what people listen to

[Montgriz]

The Beverly Hill Billies and Green Acres are huge hits in the Los Angeles area...they are on reruns the same time as the supposed NEWS shows.....I guess if we want gossip and opinion, Granny is more endearing. There is no honest or good news source on the TV and very little outside Public Broadcasting on the radio.....

[Dukedraven]

They have no job to go to, so they're a captive audience. Not a proud way to lure an audience.

[smallfish]

it's in the medias interest to create controversy and prevent progress.