NBC - NECK-AND-NECK NEWS RACE

In the nightly news race, NBC and ABC continued their mano-a-mano battle, with NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams claiming the largest number of overall viewers and ABC World News With Charles Gibson, the most viewers in the 25-54 demographic group. But the results were so close that the difference was statistically insignificant. Among total viewers, NBC recorded 10.17 million viewers against ABC's 10.06 million. Among 25-54 viewers, ABC registered 3.24 million against NBC's 3.15 million. The CBS Evening News remained in third place with 7.78 million total viewers. Meanwhile, coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith case boosted ratings for the syndicated magazine shows, with Entertainment Tonight posting numbers that were 12 percent above those for the previous week. Inside Edition's ratings were up 11 percent, setting a season high; The Insider was up 7 percent; Extra was up 4 percent. Only Access Hollywood remained flat.

22/02/2007