"ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" Closes the Total Viewing Gap with "NBC Nightly News" to the Smallest Margin in Nearly a Year

"ABC World News" Slashes Total Viewing Gap with NBC in Half and Cuts Demo Gap by 25%, Week-to-Week

Year-to-Year, ABC Narrowed the Demo Gap with NBC in 17 of the Past 18 Weeks

Season-to-Date, "World News" is in Most Competitive Position in Three Years

For the week of July 2, 2012, "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" averaged 7.29 million Total Viewers and a 1.6 rating/6 share/1.89 million in Adults 25-54, according to Nielsen Media Research. Growing over the previous week (6.98 million and 1.79 million on w/o 6/18/12) in Total Viewers (+4%) and Adults 25-54 (+6%), "World News" posted 8-week highs in both Nielsen measures - since w/o 5/7/12. In addition, the ABC evening newscast grew the most week-to-week in the key adult news demo ("NBC Nightly News" was flat; "CBS Evening News" was up +3%)

Week-to-week, "World News" slashed its Total Viewer margin with "NBC Nightly News" by more than half (-59% - 354,000 vs. 862,000) to deliver its smallest gap with the NBC newscast in nearly 1 year - since w/o 8/15/11. In addition, "World News" narrowed its Adults 25-54 gap with "NBC Nightly News" by -25% (339,000 vs. 453,000).

For the 5th week in a row, "ABC World News" decreased its Adults 25-54 gap with "NBC Nightly News" (-9% - 339,000 vs. 374,000) from the year-ago week. Further, "World News" has cut the demo gap with "Nightly News" by double-digits in 17 of the last 18 weeks.

Season-to-date, "World News" is narrowing its gaps with "NBC Nightly News" in both Total Viewers (-6%) and Adults 25-54 (-28%), delivering its smallest Total Viewer (994,000) and news demo margins (349,000) with the NBC program in 3 years - since the 2008-09 season.

"World News" outperformed the "CBS Evening News" by 1.37 million Total Viewers and by 199,000 Adults 25-54.

Note : "World News" weekend anchor David Muir anchored the broadcast Monday-Friday. Due to the July 4th holiday on Wednesday, all three programs were coded specials and were excluded from the average. The weekly averages for all three programs are based on 4 days only (Mon, Tue, Thurs and Fri).

"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.

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EVENING NEWS (Week of July 2, 2012)

Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 Live + SD weeks of 7/2/12, 6/25/12 & 7/4/11. Most Current - 2011-2012 Season (9/19/11 - 7/8/12) and 2010-2011 Season (9/20/11 - 7/10/11).