Depending on the point of comparison, Tony Dokoupil’s first three months as anchor of the CBS Evening News resulted in either improving or declining ratings. The overall standings of the network news race, however, remained unchanged.
Dokoupil and CBS are certainly under the most scrutiny, as he was tapped by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss to lead the nightly newscast as her first big hire, with the aim of bringing the Evening News closer to its rivals. In the first quarter through March 20 (which includes the final week for Dokoupil’s predecessors in the anchor chair, John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois), the CBS Evening News is averaging 4.24 million viewers and 532,000 people in the key news demographic of adults 25-54, based on Nielsen same-day ratings.
That’s an improvement over the fourth quarter of 2025, when the newscast averaged 4.03 million viewers and 502,000 adults 25-54. It’s down, however, from the first quarter a year ago (4.59 million viewers, 657,000 adults 18-49).
ABC’s World News Tonight is leading, as usual, with 8.61 million viewers and 1.07 million in the 25-54 demographic, up from the previous three months (7.86 million viewers, 974,000 adults 25-54). The David Muir-led newscast also grew its total viewer count compared to the first quarter of 2025 (8.13 million) but fell off slightly in the 25-54 demo (vs. 1.16 million).
The NBC Nightly News With Tom Llamas (6.93 million viewers, 1.04 million adults 25-54) posted across-the-board improvements with a boost from the Winter Olympics. It grew from 6.22 million viewers and 848,000 adults 25-54 in the fourth quarter and 6.6 million/983,000 in the same quarter last year.
Two caveats here: Nielsen’s first quarter officially ends on Sunday, so final averages for the three newscasts might change a little with the addition of this week’s ratings (though the order of finish will not). Additionally, THR counts all non-holiday weeknight newscasts in the average for the three networks, including those that are retitled for Nielsen tracking purposes.
Here’s how the network evening newscasts stack up for the 2025-26 season to date.
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