NBC - NBC NEWS WIDENS GAP

NBC NEWS WIDENS GAP

After seeing ABC's World News With Charles Gibson creep closer in the ratings during recent weeks, NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams widened the gap last week as it averaged 9.65 million viewers. The ABC newscast averaged 8.49 million. CBS Evening News with Katie Couric remained a distant third with 6.86 million viewers. Meanwhile, among the cable news competitors, Fox News said that it experienced its third-best quarter ever, behind only the third quarter of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina raged, and the fourth quarter of last year, which included the presidential election. It boasted that it averaged 2.25 million viewers during the quarter, up 24 percent from the same quarter a year ago, and finished second among all basic cable networks, behind only USA Network. CNN, by contrast averaged 1.13 million, down 10 percent from 2008, and MSNBC 950,000, up 24 percent from last year.

01/04/2009