Gibson earlier this month.Photo: Getty Images
The network-news world is quaking:
ABC’s
World News Tonight, with Charles Gibson, is overtaking Brian Williams on
NBC’s
Nightly News in the ratings after years and years of
NBC domination. While
New York has had
our issues with ole Charlie, the achievement is nevertheless impressive. And
NBC, for its part, is responding the way
TV networks tend to respond: It’s firing longtime
Nightly executive producer John Reiss. But infinitely more fascinating than Reiss’s imminent canning is the way Gibson is catching up. While
NBC’s evening-news audience hemorrhaged over half a million viewers in 2006,
ABC’s audience grew by a mere 60,000. In other words,
WNT isn’t really luring eyeballs away from
Nightly. It’s just that people are abandoning the format in droves, and 2006, while a fine year for
ABC, was a particular crappy one at 30 Rock. So celebrate while you can in Disney world; no doubt your viewers are disappearing next. (Does Katie even have any left to lose?) Meantime, pass the
Geritol.
NBC May Oust Evening News Executive [NYT]
Earlier: Charles in Charge [NYM]
