Originally Published by Comcast NBCUniversal.
Nightly News continues as the #1 most-watched evening newscast season-to-date in the demo most valued by news advertisers, delivering its largest demo lead over CBS in five seasons.
The broadcast continues its strong performance in the key news demo averaging 2.0 million A25-54 viewers, besting ABC World News Tonight by +9,000 viewers (+0.5%) and CBS Evening News by +751,000 viewers (+60%). Nightly News has won the key demo 25 of the last 27 weeks and the broadcast grew the most week-over-week compared to the competition.
This week, NBC Nightly News launched “Justice for All,” a new criminal justice series focusing on unjust sentencing and unreliable convictions, highlighting the stories of the wrongfully accused and the new ways of seeking justice. As part of the series, Holt will speak exclusively tonight with Matthew Charles, one of the first prisoners released under the new federal criminal justice reform law. Last Wednesday, Charles spoke exclusively with NBC News as he left prison, saying he’s thankful the government has “agreed that enough is enough.” Holt interviewed Charles by phone in June while he was still in prison.
The series officially launched last night with an exclusive interview with Cyntoia Brown’s lawyers. Brown was granted clemency yesterday by the Tennessee governor for a murder she committed when she was 16, and has received national recognition from celebrities and criminal justice reform advocates.
For the week of December 31, Nightly News averaged 1.4 million A18-49 viewers topping ABC by +36,000 (+3%) and CBS by +490,000 viewers (+55%). Nightly Newshas won A18-49 for 18 of the past 20 weeks and among the three networks, Nightly News grew the most in A18-49 viewers week-over-week.
Nightly News averaged 8.9 million total viewers for the week of December 31 leading CBS Evening News by 2.6 million total viewers (+41%). Week-over-week, Nightly Newsgrew the most in total viewers.
For the week of December 31, Nightly News rated for three nights (Jan. 2, Jan. 3, and Jan. 4) due to the New Year’s holiday.
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