Nielsen Error Removes ‘World News’ Historic Win

NBC’s Nightly News’ five-year winning streak is still intact after all.

Revised Nielsen data for the week of Sept. 29 – which was previously thought to have been won by ABC’s World News Tonight, which would have ended Nightly News’ five-year winning streak among total viewers – has shown that the NBC newscast actually topped ABC.

Revised numbers put Nightly News with 8.28 million viewers compared to World News’ 8.11 million. Nightly News also won the week of Oct. 6, extending its streak to 265 weeks. World News still held the lead among the adults 25-54 news demo, which it has won the past several weeks.

Nielsen said last week that a software update resulted in some viewing data on broadcast and syndicated shows being attributed to the wrong network, with the errors mainly in ABC’s favor.