"ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" Slashes Total Viewing and Demo Gaps  with "NBC Nightly News" by Double-Digits - Marking Smallest Viewing Gaps Since December  

Year-to-Year, "World News" Slashes Total Viewing Gap by 50% and Demo Gap by 68% with NBC  

"World News" the #1 Evening Newscast on Tuesday - Ties "Nightly" on Friday in Key Demo

For the week of May 7, 2012, "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" averaged 7.37 million Total Viewers and a 1.6 rating/7 share/1.95 million in Adults 25-54, according to Nielsen Media Research.   "World News" was up week-to-week in Total Viewers (+5%) and Adults 25-54 (+5%), drawing its largest overall audience in 9 weeks - best since w/o 3/5/12.  "World News" grew its Total Viewing audience the most week-to-week and was the only evening newscast to improve in Adults 25-54 (NBC: +2%/-1%; CBS: -2%-1%)    

The ABC evening newscast built on the year-ago week by +2% in Adults 25-54 (1.91 million on w/o 5/9/11), standing as the only evening newscast to grow over the year-ago week (NBC was down -14%; CBS was down -2%).

On Tuesday (5/8/12), "ABC World News" was the #1 evening newscast among Total Viewers, outdrawing "NBC Nightly News" by 47,000 viewers (7.941 million vs. 7.894 million) .  On Friday (5/11/12), "World News" was neck-and-neck with "Nightly News" among Adults 25-54, behind by only 2,000 (1.733 million vs. 1.735 million).

Week-to-week, "World News" cut its margins with "NBC Nightly News" by double-digits among both Total Viewers (-27% - 554,000 vs. 761,000) and Adults 25-54 (-40% - 179,000 vs. 297,000) to score its smallest margins since December - since w/o 12/19/11. In fact, "World News" turned in its 2nd-smallest news demo gap of the seasonwith the NBC program. 

Week-to-week, "World News" cut its margins with "NBC Nightly News" by double-digits among both Total Viewers (-27% - 554,000 vs. 761,000) and Adults 25-54 (-40% - 179,000 vs. 297,000) to score its smallest margins since December - since w/o 12/19/11. In fact, "World News" turned in its 2nd-smallest news demo gap of the season with the NBC program. Further, excluding the week of 12/19/11, the Adults 25-54 gap with NBC was the smallest in over 2 years - since w/o 4/26/10

"World News" substantially slashed its year-to-year gaps with "NBC Nightly News" in both Total Viewers (-50% - 554,000 vs. 1.12 million) and Adults 25-54 (-68% - 179,000 vs. 551,000).   "World News" has narrowed the demo gap with "Nightly News" by double-digits for the last 10 weeks and in 11 of the last 12.

Season to date, "World News" has narrowed the gaps with "NBC Nightly News" among both Total Viewers (-2%) and Adults 25-54 (-26%), posting its smallest Total Viewer (1.06 million) and news demo margins (355,000) with the NBC program in 3 years - since the 2008-09 season.

"World News" outperformed the "CBS Evening News" by its largest Total Viewer margin (1.64 million) in nearly 5 months (since w/o 12/26/11), while also beating the CBS program by 286,000 Adults 25-54.

"ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" airs at 6:30 p.m., ET on the ABC Television Network.  Michael Corn is the executive producer of the broadcast. Follow Diane Sawyer and the "World News" team online: @DianeSawyer; @ABCWorldNews; facebook.com/WorldNews.

EVENING NEWS (Week of May 7, 2012)

Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 Live + SD weeks of 5/7/12, 4/30/12 & 5/9/11.  Most Current - 2011-2012 Season (9/19/11 - 5/13/12) and 2010-2011 Season (9/20/11 - 5/15/11).