ABC's David Muir Hits Ratings High

ABC's David Muir reporting in Vietnam last week

ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir put in the miles last week, and he brought home the prize: an across-the-board ratings win over rival evening newscast NBC Nightly News.

According to Forbes, World News has been the most-watched newscast (among total viewers) for three seasons, but now ABC's flagship newscast is beginning to post wins over NBC in the key demo, adults 25-54, the viewing group most coveted by advertisers.

For Muir and World News, it was a critical win—and a validation of the network's strategy with Muir, which has involved deploying him anywhere in the world to cover major events and breaking news. Muir anchored World News from Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, and then anchored and reported from Hanoi, Vietnam, site of President Trump's summit meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

"We're grateful the viewers are responding," said Almin Karamehmedovic, executive producer of World News Tonight. "(David) is a reporter at heart, he loves people, and I think viewers see that."

According to ratings data released by Nielsen, Muir's newscast finished last week in first place with a total audience of 9.356 million viewers, well ahead of NBC's Lester Holt, with 8.510 million. CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor was a distant third with a total audience of 6.340 million.

But among viewers 25-54, the demographic group prized by national advertisers, ABC edged ahead of NBC, 1.972 million to NBC's 1.928 million. Interest in the broadcast evening newscasts was up during the week, with the president in Vietnam and Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen testifying before Congress on the same day. All three network anchors traveled to Hanoi, but World News was the only evening newscast to see ratings growth across all key ratings metrics compared with the same week in 2018.