ABC Dominates Night News Ratings While CBS Pulls in Third for First Quarter

WORLD NEWS TONIGHT – David Muir (ABC/Heidi Gutman)

CBS Evening News is trailing fellow news broadcasts ABC World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News after three months of Tony Dokoupil at the helm, with ABC World News Tonight dominating the nightly news ratings for the first quarter of the year.

ABC World News Tonight with David Muir averaged 8.7 million total viewers in the first quarter of 2026, also scoring 1.1 million in the 25-54 demo. Approximately 800,000 also came from the 18-49 demo. The quarter marked ABC’s biggest win over CBS since electronic records first began being kept in 1991. ABC also saw its biggest quarter lead over NBC in 30 years.

ABC held sizable leads over both NBC and CBS.

NBC Nightly News still had news to celebrate, pulling in 7 million viewers total, with more than a million in the 25-54 demo and more than 700,000 in the 18-49 demo. It was the show’s largest first quarter in three years. NBC has also seen particular growth with crucial demographics, pulling the closest 25-54 demo gap with ABC in six years. The news program, anchored by Tom Llamas, ultimately saw growth across the board.

CBS has been going through a series of changes since Bari Weiss took over as editor-in-chief in October. One of those changes was promoting Dokoupil to anchor of CBS Evening News in early January. The network’s evening news broadcast trailed ABC and NBC across the ratings board.

In the first ratings quarter, CBS Evening News averaged 4.3 million viewers, pulling 542,000 in the 25-54 demo and 312,000 in the 18-49 demo.

Dokoupil debuted as anchor of CBS Evening News on January 5, interviewing President Donald Trump just days later.

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