Evening Newscasts Lose Viewers Week of Oct. 26, Ahead of Midterms

Week of Oct. 26 evening news ratings, Digi Mart USA News: ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas, and CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil all suffered week-to-week declines in total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo during the week of October 26. The declines came the week before the pivotal midterm elections.

NBC Nightly News posted the smallest fall in total viewers, while CBS Evening News lost viewers by double digits in the prized demo, dropping below the 600,000 viewer mark. The weekly averages for ABC News, NBC News and CBS News are based on four days, Monday through Thursday.

Friday’s October 30 broadcasts were retitled WNT-ABC, NBC Nitely News and CBS Evening Nws and were excluded from the weekly and season averages.

According to Nielsen national live+same-day big data and program ratings, ABC World News Tonight averaged 8.454 million total viewers and 1.157 million Adults 25-54 viewers for the week of Oct. 26. The newscast was down 4% in total viewers and 3% in the demo compared with the previous week.

In the same week of 2025, the week beginning Oct. 27, WNT was up 9% in total viewers and 22% in the demo.

NBC Nightly News ranked second in total viewers and in the demo, averaging 6.652 million total viewers and 1.049 million demo viewers. Compared with the previous week, it fell 1% in total viewers and 5% in the demo.

Against the same week a year earlier, Nightly News was up 8% in total viewers and 24% in the demo.

CBS Evening News finished the week with 4.187 million total viewers and 590,000 demo viewers. The newscast dropped 9% in total viewers and 14% in the demo compared with the previous week.

In the year-ago week, CBS Evening News was up 3% in total viewers and 20% in the demo.

Season-to-date figures are based on regularly titled telecasts only, drawn from the 2026-2027 season (September 21 through November 1, 2026) and the 2025-2026 season (September 22 through November 2, 2026).