ABC WORLD NEWS Hits 2 Year Rating High with Weather, Election Coverage

By: Tyler Peterson Nov. 07, 2012

With coverage of Hurricane Sandy for the week of October 29, 2012, "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" posted in its strongest numbers in both Total Viewers (8.60 million) and Adults 25-54 (2.0 rating/7 share/2.33 million) in 20 months (since w/o 2/7/11 and w/o 2/28/11, respectively), according to Nielsen Media Research.

"World News" turned in its 3 strongest telecasts of the season to date in Viewers and Adults 25-54 on Monday (9.34 and 2.58 million - 10/29/12), Tuesday (9.69 and 2.72 million - 10/30/12) and Wednesday (8.65 and 2.44 million - 10/31/12). In fact the Tuesday broadcast stood as "World News'" top telecast in both overall viewers and in the key adult news demo in over 1 year - since 9/5/11.

"World News" improved on its year-ago week performance by +12% in Total Viewers and by +18% in Adults 25-54 (7.65 million and 1.97 million, respectively, on w/o 10/31/11).

"World News" outperformed "CBS Evening News" by 1.21 million Viewers and by 182,000 A25-54.

Season to date, which excludes the week of October 29, "World News" has narrowed its Total Viewer gap (-37%) with "NBC Nightly News" for the second year in a row to post its smallest gap (439,000) with the NBC program in 4 years- since the 2008-09 season.