ABC's "World News Tonight," anchored by David Muir, concluded June as the nation's most-watched nightly newscast, averaging 7.82 million total viewers. The broadcast also narrowly edged out "NBC Nightly News" in the advertiser-coveted 25-to-54 demographic.
During June, "NBC Nightly News," led by Tom Llamas, averaged 936,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 demographic, just 11,000 behind ABC's 947,000. This marks the closest June gap between the two networks in nine years and reflects a trend of NBC steadily closing the demographic advantage ABC has held under Llamas' first year as anchor. Despite this narrowing, Muir's program maintained a lead of approximately 1.4 million total viewers over "NBC Nightly News" for the month.
"World News Tonight" holds a season-to-date lead of roughly 1.8 million viewers over NBC and 4.3 million viewers over CBS, its largest advantage over both rivals in over three decades. However, this occurred despite sports preemptions and a carriage dispute affecting ABC affiliates in some markets during June.
NBC reported that June marked its fifth consecutive month of year-over-year audience growth in both total viewers and key advertising demographics. The network stated that "Nightly News" recorded its largest June audience in six years and achieved multiple daily demographic victories over ABC during the month, including a weekly win during the week of June 8.
"CBS Evening News," anchored by Tony Dokoupil, remained in third place, averaging 3.91 million total viewers in June. The broadcast garnered 564,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 demographic and 373,000 in the 18-to-49 demographic. CBS indicated that its revamped broadcast, which launched in January, is showing signs of momentum, with a 1% increase in total viewers from May and a 9% year-over-year growth in the 25-to-54 demographic, its strongest monthly performance in that category since January.
Network executives attributed some of CBS's ratings improvements to Dokoupil, suggesting he has helped reverse significant audience declines that affected the previous co-anchor format. "CBS Evening News" anticipates posting year-over-year growth for the second quarter, even with typically softer summer television viewing.
ABC has held the lead in total viewers for its evening newscast since 2015, when "World News Tonight" surpassed NBC following Brian Williams’ departure. The broadcast continues to maintain a substantial overall audience advantage.