ABC bests NBC in latest Nightly News ratings

The viewership of the evening news among CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS), General Electric Company (NYSE: GE)'s NBC and The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS)'s ABC has always been a dogfight. Each competitor tries to add more value and one-up the next guy (or gal) with flashy anchors, exclusive stories, or engaging content. It's a death match, and it always has been. In an age of instant news viewed through the Internet, though, the jobs of all three are increasingly becoming harder. That is, grabbing new viewers won't be getting any easier soon as a generation of news hounders who live on the web shun television and the associated glitz for the instant gratification of news fixes, even on their cellphone screens.

But, that is not stopping the news networks from still obsessively worrying about which one has the highest viewership in the U.S. As reported recently, NBC's decade-long dominance in the evening news segment has seen a recent upstart surge from ABC World News Tonight, anchored by Charles Gibson. Bryan Williams, who replaced NBC vet Tom Brokaw just recently, probably isn't worried that much for now. But Gibson has been around for a long time at ABC, and he's a familiar face to millions. So is Williams, but he may not have the viewer-gaining power that Gibson is most likely enjoying at the moment.

Which network will end 2007 with more documented viewers? That can't be called right now, but with advertisers becoming more protective of their ad money (and shifting more onto the internet), the battle for ratings has never been more important than it is now. Media distribution is changing rapidly, and only the last success is the best form of present success. So far, the 25 to 54 demographic, which is the top prize among advertisers, watched ABC's nightly news broadcast more than NBC's nightly program for the first time in 11 years recently. If this is a sign of things to come, it'll be a dogfight once again.