NBC's NIGHTLY NEWS Delivers Biggest Across-the-Board Wins Over ABC

"NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" delivered big wins across the board for the week ending August 1, 2014, and finished its 28th consecutive sweep period as America's most-watched evening newscast, according to Nielsen Media Research data (L+SD).

For the week, the NBC broadcast was #1 in all categories with 7.898 million total viewers and a 1.6 rating A25-54 -- topping ABC World News by +638,000 total viewers and +1 tenth in the news demo. This marks Nightly's largest total viewer audience and highest demo rating in five weeks, as well as its best total viewer gap over ABC since the week of 6/16/2014 and best demo rating win over ABC since the week of 6/9/2014.

Nightly was the only evening newscast to post week-to-week growth in total viewers (+2%), rating M/A18-49 (+11%/+10%) and rating W/A25-54 (+13%/+7%). Compared to the previous week, Nightly widened its total viewer lead over ABC by +57%, its A18-49 viewer lead by 58%, and delivered a 199% turnaround in A25-54 viewers.

Compared to the same week last season, Nightly delivered the biggest total viewer gains among the evening newscasts, increasing by +408,000 (+5%). Year-over-year, Nightly also widened its total viewer lead over ABC by +20% and its A25-54 viewer gap by 47%.

Season-to-date, Nightly is posting its biggest total viewer audience (8.950 million) since the 2005-06 season and its largest lead over ABC (+981,000) since the 2010-11 season. Nightly continues to post the largest season-to-season growth among the national evening newscasts, increasing by +494,000 total viewers (+6%) and widening its advantage over ABC by +28%.

Weekly Highlights:

Nightly delivered 7.898 million viewers, leading ABC World News by +638,000 and CBS Evening News by +2,103,000.
Nightly averaged a 1.6 A25-54 rating, +1 tenth over ABC and +4 tenths over CBS.
Among A25-54 (000), Nightly averaged 1.935 million viewers, topping ABC by +100,000 and CBS by +441,000.
Nightly averaged a 1.1 A18-49 rating, leading ABC by +1 tenth and CBS by +3 tenths.
Nightly averaged 1.403 million A18-49 viewers, leading ABC by +139,000 and CBS by +347,000.

July Sweep Highlights

Nightly averaged 7.786 million viewers, +408,000 more than ABC's 7.378 million and +1,732,000 more than CBS's 6.054 million.
Nightly delivered a 1.5 A25-54 rating, leading CBS by +3 tenths.
Nightly averaged 1.802 million A25-54 viewers, leading CBS by +336,000.
Nightly finished #1 in rating A18-49, tied with ABC and topping CBS by +2 tenths.
Nightly delivered 1.322 million A18-49 viewers, beating ABC by +43,000 and CBS by +305,000.
Compared to the previous July sweep period, Nightly posted growth in total viewers (+1%, or +83,000) and rating M18-49 (+13%).

Trends

Nightly has won in total viewers for 255 consecutive weeks, and in 302 of the past 303 weeks.
Nightly has been #1 in rating A25-54 in 296 of the last 300 weeks (including ties).
Nightly has been #1 in total viewers for 28 consecutive sweep periods and in 15 of the last 16 July sweeps.
Nightly has been #1 in rating A18-49 for 29 straight sweep periods.