Since officially naming Lester Holt as the successor to Brian Williams in the anchor chair on “Nightly News,” NBC has held onto its its familiar position as the evening news ratings leader.
The AP reports: “NBC has beaten David Muir and ABC’s ‘World News Tonight’ in all eight of the weeks since Holt was appointed Williams’ successor, the Nielsen company said. Last week NBC averaged 8 million viewers to ABC’s 7.7 million, and 6.4 million for the ‘CBS Evening News.'”
During the interim phase — after Williams was suspended but before that suspension became permanent — the NBC broadcast struggled to keep pace with ABC, which scored a number of weekly ratings wins during the period.
Williams remains with the NBC corporate family and is due to begin a role on MSNBC in September.
“During the summer of Trump, all three evening newscasts are seeing bumps in viewership,” the AP report notes. “During the past eight weeks, ‘Nightly News’ is up 2 percent in viewers over the same period in 2014, ‘World News Tonight’ is up 5 percent and the ‘CBS Evening News’ is up 7 percent, Nielsen said.”
In the key news demo of viewers 25-54 — a demo that was won by ABC last summer — “Nightly News” is up 7% and has won seven of the past eight weeks over “World News Tonight,” which is even with last year, the report notes.
This is not surprising. When you offer up some class, people will respond. Lester should have had this gig from the get-go.
I think Lester is doing a great job. I watch him every night. Now, if they’d stop making him report on fluff pieces and do even more real news, I’d like him even better!
Mr. Holt is and will always be a class act! He should have been given the anchor chair when Brian Williams decided he wanted to be a “star”. We need honest newscaster with integrity. Mr. Holt has both. He deserves and has worked for all the good he is now receiving.
He’s made me return to watching broadcast news and I haven’t watched in 25 years. True story!
Lester Holt is THE MAN! Congratulations!
I love lamp.