During the week of October 26, the major network evening newscasts experienced week-to-week drops in both total viewers and the key Adults 25-54 demographic. The programs affected included ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas, and CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil.
These declines arrived just the week before the pivotal midterm elections. While NBC Nightly News posted the smallest fall in total viewers, CBS Evening News lost viewers by double digits in the prized demo, dropping below the 600,000 viewer mark.
Overall, the CBS News newscast dropped by 9 percent in total viewers and 14 percent in the demographic compared to the previous week. However, when compared to its year-ago week numbers, CBS Evening News was up 3 percent in total viewers and 20 percent in the demo.
Note that the weekly averages for ABC News, NBC News, and CBS News are based on four days (Monday through Thursday). Friday’s (10/30/26) broadcasts were retitled to WNT-ABC, NBC Nitely News, and CBS Evening Nws, respectively, and were excluded from the weekly and season averages according to Nielsen national live+same-day data.
