ABC 'World News' Only Network Newscast To Grow In February Sweeps Ratings

The network news ratings for the February sweeps told an interesting tale: while "NBC Nightly News," as it usually does, won the overall ratings, ABC's "World News" was the only broadcast network to actually grow its audience.

In fact, "World News," anchored by Diane Sawyer, had its best February in three years, and managed to grow its audience by 1% from February 2010. By contrast, the "CBS Evening News" was down 4% from last year, and NBC--whose 2010 numbers were boosted by the Winter Olympics--fell 10%. ABC also shrank the ratings gap between itself and NBC by 50%.

NBC, though, came first in the ratings. It drew 9.71 million viewers for the month, with 2.85 million in the A25-54 demo. ABC drew 8.55 million viewers, with 2.37 in the demo. CBS lagged behind with 6.29 million viewers and 1.95 million in the demo.