Week of Aug 24 Evening News Ratings: ABC and NBC Grow in Both Categories

ABC World News Tonight with David Muirand NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamasfinished the week of August 24 with gains in both total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo.

WNT finished with its best demo performance since the week of Jan. 13, 2025, while Nightly News crossed the 7-million-mark in total viewers, giving it its largest audience since the week of Feb. 16.

CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupilhad a good bounce back in the advertiser-coveted demo, surging double digits percentage points to finish above 500,000 viewers; however, CBS News' program saw declines in total viewers.

Note: ABC World Tonight and CBS Evening News' weekly averages are based on four days (Monday-Thursday), while the weekly average of NBC Nightly News is based on three days (Monday-Wednesday). Friday's edition (08/28/26) of ABC and CBS News' broadcasts were retitled to WNT-ABC and CBS Evening Nws, respectively. While Thursday's (08/27/2026) and Friday's ABC News and NBC News broadcasts were retitled to NBC Nitely News. These broadcasts are excluded from the weekly and season averages.

According to national live+same-day big data plus program ratings from Nielsen, ABC World News Tonight averaged 8.731 million total viewers and 1.219 million Adults 25-54 demo viewers for the week of Aug. 24. The evening newscast was up +3% among total viewers and +15% among A25-54 viewers compared to the previous week . Looking at its performance during the same week in 2025* ( the week beginning Aug. 25 ), WNT was up +24% in total viewers and +40% in the demo.

NBC Nightly News finished in the No. 2 position in total viewers and the demo, averaging 7.052 million and 1.07 million viewers, respectively. Compared to the previous week, Nightly News grew by +6% in total viewers and +4% in the demo. When comparing its performance to the same week a year ago, Nightly News was up by +33% in total viewers and +57% in the demo.

CBS Evening News closed out the week of Aug. 24 with 3.916 million total viewers and 531,000 demo viewers. CBS News' newscast slid by -1% in total viewers but finished with double-digit gains of +16% in the demo compared to the previous week-the only newscast to lose viewers in one of the measured categories. Its year-ago week numbers showed CBS Evening News up +1% in total viewers but down -11% in the demo-the only news program to shed viewers in one of the categories within this yearly comparison.

*Please note that year-over-year comparisons are based on Nielsen Big Data+Panel (2026) vs. Panel (2025) measurements.

August 24, 2026 (Nielsen Big Data + Panel):

Source: Nielsen Big Data + Panel, L+SD, Week of 8/24/2026. Season to date: Most Current Data Stream: 2025-2026 Season (9/22/25 – 8/233026) and 2024-2025 Season (9/23/24 – 8/31/25). Average audience based on regularly titled telecasts only.

This article was originally featured on Adweek.com .