‘World News Tonight’ posts growth in first quarter as rivals dip

“ABC World News Tonight” managed not only to slightly grow its audience in the first quarter of 2025, but it held onto viewers as its NBC and CBS rivals lost them.

“WNT” averaged about 8.13 million viewers, up slightly from 8.12 million over the first quarter of 2024. 

Meanwhile, “NBC Nightly News” finished with an average of 6.561 million viewers, which is a 3% loss over last year’s numbers.

“CBS Evening News” dropped even more, 8%, to average 4.59 million. CBS did overhaul the broadcast Jan. 27, 2025, with a new anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois and a revised format that leaned more into longer storytelling with less emphasis on the headlines of the day. 

ABC’s ‘World News Tonight’ maintains visual identity in move to Hudson Square facility

ABC did move “WNT” to a new studio and set in March 2025, though the newscast’s look remained largely the same, with the most significant update being expanded lower thirds that extend beyond the 4:3 safe area that the broadcast had been using for years.

The new “Evening” format and anchor updates gave the broadcast a small initial bump but the network began making updates to she format after it was met with criticism.

This latest data did include several weeks under the old format and anchor Norah O’Donnell as well as the tinkering with format and initial increase in viewership that’s common when newscasts are overhauled, so there are a significant number of wildcards in the mix of these ratings. It’s not clear how much these factors could have affected overall ratings, though it’s likely any anomalies would be minimal.

Despite dropping in 2025 compared to 2024’s first quarter numbers, “Nightly” did show ratings growth over the prior quarter ending Dec. 31, 2024, growing by 538,000 in total viewers, up 9% from just over 6 million in the last part of 2024.

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Between the last part of 2024 and the first part of 2025, “Nightly” also managed to grow its audience a bit more than “WNT” in the adults 25 to 54 demo, up 10%, to 975,000 over 888,000. ABC went from 1.043 million to 1.130 million viewers between the two quarters, an 8.3% increase.

“Nightly” hasn’t seen any major overhauls in the first quarter but is facing an anchor change later in 2025 when Tom Llamas replaces Lester Holt on the broadcast. 

Llamas is a former weekend anchor for “WNT” and also filled in for David Muir on weekdays — and his anchoring style is significantly different than Holt’s. Having spent years at ABC, it’s not surprising that Llamas reflects the fast-paced, energetic style many ABC anchors use on “WNT,” “Good Morning America” and “This Week.” 

How “Nightly” viewers respond to this approach is likely to be at least one of the key factors in determining if NBC is able to reverse its evening news fortunes.

In the shifting broadcast industry, posting viewer gains is becoming more and more of a significant accomplishment as many shows, news and otherwise, are losing viewers to streaming, digital and social media.

While some live programming such as sports and reality, have shown positive signs in staving off more significant losses, newscasts are often more likely to be affected by the onslaught of constant news headlines many consumers experience throughout the day, making a 30-minute roundup of headlines less relevant. That notion at least partially led to CBS News’ move to reformat its offering, though it still appears that at least some news summary-style content is still in demand.