It’s a big day at ABC News, as World News surpassed NBC Nightly News in both total viewers and the 25-54 demographic for the first time since 1996. ABC News chief David Westin brought a case of champagne to the World News rim to congratulate the staff on its February sweeps win. Over at NBC News, executive producer John Reiss has been reassigned after two years on the job. “(He put) his heart and soul into the best television he could muster from all of us for the past two years,” blogs Brian Williams. “The last occupant of that job, Steve Capus, went on to run NBC News — so the bar is high for the man who has been my partner in crime around here for as long as I’ve been a nightly occupant of that chair. He leaves the job with the thanks of all of us.” Nightly lost an average of 570,000 viewers over the last year. CBS Evening News, now with Katie Couric, lost an average of 120,000 over the same period. World News gained 60,000.
Adds Andrew Tyndall: “Certainly, 570,000 viewers seems like an awfully large number of viewers to have mislaid – but since Nightly was the first of the three broadcast networks to make a big deal about offering its broadcast newscast, in its entirety, online – so viewers did not have to watch on Nielsen-rated television – at least some of those 570,000 must be still watching, but at msnbc.com instead. Given Lost Remote’s party line that online is an opportunity for broadcasters rather than a threat of cannibalization, Bergman seems to be sending mixed messages to NBC here: implying that somehow offering viewers a choice of platforms results in the opposition popping champagne corks.”
Cory adds: “I’ll respond to Andrew’s comment with a quote from NBC’s own chief digital officer, George Kliavkoff: ‘All of our research departments say folks who watch TV online are more likely to go watch on television… for us, it’s all additive,’ he said last month. MSNBC.com’s Nightly Netcast doesn’t cannibalize the newscast’s TV ratings, on the contrary, it allows new viewers to sample it and provides an alternative for TV viewers who missed it. So where did the viewers go? Sure, aging viewership is certainly a factor, but I believe people are watching less evening news because they’re reading more of it online during the day. National and international news is everywhere online (not to mention cable news), and the evening newscasts have become optional. In today’s busy lifestyles, optional TV viewing is increasingly a thing of the past.”
