What To Know
- ABC World News Tonight led the week of November 2.
- NBC Nightly News ranked second and led Tuesday’s election-night coverage.
- CBS Evening News remained third.
The teams at ABC World News Tonight With David Muir, NBC Nightly News With Tony Llamas, and CBS Evening News With Tony Dokoupil can’t be blue about the midterm elections, which resulted in a historic blue wave. All three newscasts saw week-to-week growth among total viewers and Adults 25-54 demo viewers that week.
The ranking of the three shows, however, stayed consistent. ABC World News Tonight remained No. 1 for the week of November 2, according to Nielsen national live+same-day big data and program ratings cited by TVNewser. David Muir’s ABC broadcast that week averaged 9.143 million total viewers, up 8 percent over the week prior and 27 percent over the same week in 2025, and 1.325 million viewers in the Adults 25-54 demo, up 15 percent week over week and 50 percent year over year.
Furthermore, ABC World News Tonight that Wednesday was the most-watched program across broadcast and cable TV that week, scoring 9.521 million total viewers, according to TVNewser.
Over at NBC, Tom Llamas’ newscast remained in second place with an average of 7.268 million total viewers — up 9 percent both week over week and year over year — and 1.163 million demo viewers — up 25 percent both week over week and year over year.
In other good news for Llamas and his colleagues, NBC Nightly News charted its best performance in both categories in more than eight months, per TVNewser.
The site noted that both the ABC World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News averages are based on three days that week — Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. But Nielsen data shared by The Guardian showed NBC won the midterm election night ratings on Tuesday, attracting 6.74 million viewers during primetime.
Meanwhile, the CBS newscast with Tony Dokoupil continued its third-place streak the week of November 2, with 4.332 million total viewers — up 3 percent week over week and 2 percent year over year — and 663,000 demo viewers — up 12 percent year over year and 18 percent year over year.