Posted on 05/17/2007 5:48:47 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Lost amid the hoopla over the declining viewership for Katie Couric’s newscast has been a perhaps even more surprising development: The nightly news at her old network isn’t doing so well, either.
A week after Couric’s “CBS Evening News” dipped to its worst viewership ever, NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams” matched its worst viewership among adults 25-54 in at least the past 20 years, since Nielsen began using people meters in 1987.
“Nightly” averaged 2.18 million 25-54s last week, the week ended May 13. The newscast also saw its total viewers average slide to its lowest point in months, 7.16 million.
That’s a 15 percent decline compared with the same week a year ago. By comparison, ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson,” which finished first with an average 7.91 million viewers, was up 8 percent over the same time last year.
There’s likely no one reason for the slide, but it’s notable because NBC had been on top for years, up until Gibson began moving ahead three months ago.
Certainly part of NBC's slide could be the overall dip in TV viewership that's spreading across primetime and other dayparts. That's seen a number of top-rated programs, including NBC’s “Today,” decline.
But it could also be signaling a longer-term shift in viewing from the networks' nightly news shows.
The backbone of that audience has long been older viewers, those over 50. They've been the least inclined to follow younger people to cable and the internet and other new media options. But they might now be doing so.
Year to date, NBC’s newscast is down 6 percent in total viewers and CBS is down 5 percent. ABC is up 3 percent.
Yet even ABC is struggling with the viewers who matter most, those 25-54s, and last week Gibson too was near a record low.
One final reason for NBC's dip could be a lingering backlash over the network's use of footage of Virginia Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho’s final diatribe last month. The decision to air the footage was met with some public outrage, followed by weeks of debate over whether the network made the right move. Journalists agreed that it had, but the general public was more divided.
Though such things are rarely reflected so quickly in the ratings, NBC’s telecast has dipped a lot in the past few weeks; it usually takes the nightly news shows months to see any sort of up or down trend.
In the past two weeks, “Nightly” has gone from 7.89 million total viewers the week ended April 29 to 7.16 million last week, a difference of 730,000. ABC and CBS were both down fewer than 300,000 in that span.
Gravitaslessness is the kiss of death in that profession. ...and both Couric and Williams got it bad.
Maybe there is a reason for low ratings. I wonder if the programming geniuses have thought of that.
Whoops..
The long-term hypnogas shots are wearing off that the networks working with the teachers’ unions injected into senior citizens while they were still in high school.
Suddenly they wake up one evening and say, “What? What? Why am I sitting here watching this junk?”
They should have used another 5 cc.
Yep. Williams acts like a sissy.
NBC sucks, period.
The main reason for declining viewership is their viewers are dying off with the WWI vets.
LOL. Hi-larious!
Maybe people with HD TV can’t take the way Brian Williams leans into the camera. It’s got to look like he’s about to come through the screen. It’s bad enough on regular tv.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been able to trust any news anchor whose nose is sideways.
I watched a few minutes of NBC the other night, and it was totally anti-American propaganda. I flipped by tonight, and they had a segment about how US troops are issued defective body armor. It was so slanted I couldn’t make it all the way through. I think their declining viewership is a reaction against their total anti-American agenda. Apparently, NBC/MSNBC has decided pandering to the far left is the way to go. I hope it kills them.
Boo hoo to Brian and Katie. We’ll miss them (not).
The graph is severely distorted by the scale, but it’s still 50% in 25 years.
Network creeps here this: YOU ARE NOT TRUSTWORTHY.
There’s likely no one reason for the slide, but it’s notable because NBC had been on top for years, up until Gibson began moving ahead three months ago.
Other than the fact that, unlike Couric and Williams, Gibson does not feel the need to continuously and gratuitously crap on conservatives.
Brian Williams always gives me the feeling that he’s a man who is desperate to have people not find out how stupid he really is.
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