For the 17th consecutive week, “World News Tonight with David Muir” stood as the No. 1 program in Total Viewers (8.339 million) on all of broadcast and cable (excluding sports) during the week of Aug 3, 2026, based on Live+Same Day Big Data Plus Panel Program Ratings from Nielsen Media Research.
- “World News Tonight with David Muir” ranked as the No. 1 newscast in all of broadcast and cable in Total Viewers (8.339 million) and Adults 18-49 (819,000).
- “World News Tonight” increased its Total Viewer lead over “NBC Nightly News,” both week to week (+9% – 1.682 million vs. 1.548 million), and year to year (+11% – 1.682 million vs. 1.519 million).
- For the second week in a row, “World News Tonight” was up over the previous week in Total Viewers (+2%/+171,000 – 8.339 million vs. 8.168 million).
- For the fifth week in a row, “World News Tonight” improved year to year by double digits in all key target demos: Total Viewers (+17%/+1.224 million – 8.339 million vs. 7.115 million), Adults 25-54 (+17%/+153,000 –1.039 million vs. 886,000) and Adults 18-49 (+41%/+237,000 –819,000 vs. 582,000).
- “World News Tonight” (8.339 million, 1.039 million and 819,000, respectively) outperformed “CBS Evening News” (3.913 million, 514,000 and 395,000, respectively) by triple digits in Total Viewers (+113%/+4.426 million), Adults 25-54(+102%/+525,000) and Adults 18-49 (+107%/+424,000).
Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas wins the week in the key A25-54 demo, topping ABC’s World News Tonight by +26,000 viewers for the week of August 3. The NBC flagship newscast averages 1.1 million viewers in the key demo, its largest audience since February 16, 2026, while averaging 6.6 million total viewers.
Nightly News overtook World News Tonight for three consecutive nights beginning Monday, marking Nightly’s 5th weekly week for the season as the newscast continues to deliver its closest demo gap vs. ABC in 7 years.
This also marked the 27th consecutive week of Nightly growing across-the-board since last year, with Nightly delivering its best total viewer and A18-49 streak on record and its best A25-54 streak since 1997. Year over year, Nightly grew +54% in A25-54, +66% in A18-49 and +19% in total viewers.