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LA Times, TVWeek

Lester Holt Era Off to a Good Start for ‘NBC Nightly News’

Jun 30, 2015  •  Post A Comment

With Lester Holt officially installed as the permanent host of “NBC Nightly News,” the new era for the company’s flagship news program launched on a winning note. The Los Angeles Times reports that the NBC broadcast won the week of June 22-26 in total viewers and in the key news demo of viewers 25-54.

“Holt’s broadcast averaged 8 million viewers for the week of June 22-26, topping ‘ABC World News Tonight with David Muir’ (7.7 million) and ‘CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley’ (6.6 million), according to Nielsen data,” the Times reports, adding: “It was the best ratings performance for ‘Nightly’ since the week of April 20, and the widest margin of victory over ABC’s program in three months.”

The NBC program had a slim advantage of 37,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo, the network’s first win in that metric since the week of May 18.

NBC named Holt as the official replacement for Brian Williams on June 18, after Holt had been filling in on a temporary basis since Williams was suspended in February. As we reported recently, Williams was demoted to a new role at MSNBC.

The Times report notes: “Holt clearly benefited from the national press coverage he received for his ascension to the chair. NBC’s decision on Williams also freed the network to run promotional spots for the newscast, something it hasn’t done since Williams’ suspension began.”

ABC, meanwhile, celebrated a quarterly win for “World News Tonight,” as we reported separately.

Please click here to see numbers for the second quarter and for the week of June 22 for the three major broadcast news programs.

nbc nightly news-lester holt

3 Comments

  1. Re: comment on June 30th, “AIR TRAVELERS WILL RECEIVE EXTRA SCRUTINITY”, what a joke! Lester, all the TSA cares about is searching grandmas and kids for banned SUBSTANCES. What extra scrutinity would we do, zip! Now if we want to get into pre-screening as you enter the airport and a it of profiling (after all has a Caucasiun grandma ever been a threat? Come on Lester write your own material or I will move on. Look I am a white 78 year old male and they took my toothpaste at the scanner, the tube was too big. This is a joke and not my kind of scrutinity.
    I know this won’t travel at NBC with all the lefties on the payroll but can you refute what I have said???????
    Dan Reynolds
    Cranberry Township, pa

  2. I am done with Nightly News bias reporting..Will not watch anymore!

  3. I am done with Nightly News bias reporting..Will not watch anymore!

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