Syracuse native David Muir is continuing his reign as the most-watched newscaster in television.
According to Nielsen Media Research, ABC News’ “World News Tonight with David Muir” won the 2022-2023 TV ratings season with 31 weeks as the No. 1 most-watched program of the week in all of U.S. broadcast and cable, excluding sports. Muir’s show averaged 8.089 million total viewers, down slightly from last year’s 8.145 million, but increased its lead over the competition as the most-watched evening newscast for the seventh year in a row.
“World News Tonight” also continued its run as the No. 1 newscast in all key demographics for the fourth year in a row with 1.288 million adults 25-54 and 891,000 adults 18-49.
“NBC Nightly News,” anchored by Lester Holt, was second among evening newscasts with 6.742 million total viewers and 1.113 million adults ages 25-54. That’s down more than 100,000 total viewers from last season and more than 1.3 million viewers behind Muir.
That’s a big shift from less than a decade ago, when NBC led by more than 1 million total viewers in the 2013-14 season when Brian Williams anchored the evening news and Diane Sawyer sat at ABC’s desk. Muir brought that margin down to just 370,000 in his first year as anchor from 2014 to 2015, and quickly grew his audience past NBC.
“CBS Evening News,” anchored by Norah O’Donnell, remains a distant third with 4.829 million total viewers in the 2022-2023 season and just 752,000 adults ages 25-54.
Muir has repeatedly stood out with his on-site reporting from locations around the world, including interviewing President Joe Biden in Poland on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war with Ukraine, documenting recovering efforts in Maui, and highlighting climate change’s impact on famine in South Sudan. Muir is set to receive the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism next month.
Muir, a former anchor and reporter at Syracuse’s WTVH (now part of CNY Central), is a graduate…
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