THE #1 NEWSCAST ACROSS BROADCAST AND CABLE IS ABC’S ‘WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WITH DAVID MUIR’ — ONLY NEWSCAST TO GROW WEEK TO WEEK IN TOTAL VIEWERS, ADULTS 25-54 AND ADULTS 18-49

“World News Tonight with David Muir” opened the 2025-2026 season as America’s No. 1 evening newscast in all of broadcast and cable in Total Viewers (7.181 million), Adults 25-54 (856,000) and Adults 18-49 (587,000) during the week of Sept. 22, 2025, based on Live+Same Day Big Data Plus Panel Program Ratings from Nielsen Media Research. “World News Tonight” stood as the most-watched evening newscast during the opening week of the season for the 10th year in a row and led in all key target demos during premiere week for the 6th consecutive year in a row — since premiere weeks of the 2016-2017 and the 2020-2021 seasons, respectively.

• “World News Tonight” outdelivered “NBC Nightly News” (5.701 million, 808,000 and 553,000, respectively) by 1.480 million Total Viewers, by 48,000 Adults 25-54 and by 34,000 Adults 18-49. “World News Tonight” increased its overall viewer lead week to week by 5% (vs. +1.415 million).
• “World News Tonight” improved on the previous week in Total Viewers (+2%/+109,000 – 7.181 million vs. 7.072 million), Adults 25-54 (+9%/+70,000 – 856,000 vs. 786,000) and Adults 18-49 (+10%/+51,000 – 587,000 vs. 536,000), standing as the only evening newscast to grow week to week across the board.
  
• “World News Tonight” (7.181 million, 856,000 and 587,000, respectively) defeated “CBS Evening News” (3.731 million, 419,000 and 291,000, respectively), nearly doubling its lead in Total Viewers (+92%/+3.450 million), while more than doubling in Adults 25-54 (+104%/+437,000) and Adults 18-49 (+102%/+296,000). In fact, “World News Tonight” delivered its largest Total Viewer lead over the CBS program during premiere week in at least 34 years — since at least the week of 9/16/1991, the Nielsen electronic database started in September 1991.

NOTE: On Monday (9/22/25), “World News Tonight” was retitled to “WNT-ABC” due to the NFL. The retitled telecast is excluded from the weekly and season averages. ABC’s weekly averages are based on four days (Tuesday-Friday).

ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” airs 6:30-7:00 p.m. EDT on ABC. Chris Dinan is the executive producer of the broadcast.

EVENING NEWS (Week of Sept. 22, 2025)

	TOTAL VIEWERS	ADULTS 25-54	ADULTS 18-49	HOUSEHOLDS
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT	7,181,000	0.7/10; 856,000	0.4/9; 587,000	4.3/17
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS	5,701,000	0.6/10; 808,000	0.4/ 9; 553,000	3.4/14
CBS EVENING NEWS	3,731,000	0.3/5; 419,000	0.2/5; 291,000	2.2/8

Source: Nielsen, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49 National Live + Same Day Big Data Plus Panel Program Ratings. Current Week (w/o 9/22/25), Previous Week (w/o 9/15/25) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 9/23/24). Beginning 12/26/22, averages are based on Big Data Plus Panel ratings. Nielsen ratings for ABC, NBC and CBS include additional airings in select markets. Beginning 8/31/20, national ratings also include Out of Home (OOH) viewing. Averages based on regular telecasts.

*COPYRIGHT ©2025 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All photography is copyrighted material and is for editorial use only. Images are not to be archived, altered, duplicated, resold, retransmitted or used for any other purposes without written permission of ABC News. Images are distributed to the press to publicize current programming. Any other usage must be licensed.

ABC News Media Relations
Van Scott
van.scott@abc.com

For more information, follow ABC News PR on Facebook, X and Instagram.