ABC's "World News With Diane Sawyer" pulled off a rare feat last week, scoring a weekly win against "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" in the key 25-54 news demo and snapping the 243-week winning streak that "Nightly News" had enjoyed in the demo.
For the week of July 22, "World News" edged out "Nightly News" in the demo, averaging 1.917 million viewers in the demo, compared to 1.879 for "Nightly News." The week represented ABC's first weekly win in the demo since the week of Nov. 17, 2008, and the largest margin over NBC since the week of Oct. 27, 2008.
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The weekly win was preceded by advances for "World News." In each of the prior five weeks, ABC's nightly newscast had narrowed its gap in the demo by double digits.
In total viewers, NBC still won the week, averaging 7.536 million compared to NBC's 7.287, though "World News" has advanced on that front as well. For last week, "World News" had its smallest viewership gap versus NBC in 42 weeks, and has cut the gap from 1.28 million total viewers a year ago to 249,000 last week.
"Diane and I are incredibly proud of the talented team of producers and correspondents who come in every day curious about the world," executive producer Michael Corn said of the win. "We appreciate the support from our local stations and most of all the loyal viewers who trust us to bring them the most important and compelling stories of the day. We have a lot more work to do. We’re just getting started."