I'm not surprised by this, given the huge audience the Olympics attracts. But NBC Nightly News is the only American newscast I catch regularly every evening.

Their newscast was awful during the Summer Games, because most of it was devoted to Olympic highlights which only they had the rights to show (focused on Americans, natch) and it wound up having very little actual news in it. 

I started taping it instead and skipped through those parts because, unlike most here, I find the Olympics a giant bore. I found I could watch a 22 minute (without commercials) newscast in about 8-10 minutes it had so little worthwhile content in it. 

Every night, they spent approx. 6-7 minutes on the day's results, and it was almost always the lead. I know the time because that's how much I had to fast forward through it to get to actual news. Then there was almost always a kicker piece at the end that was another 2-2 1/2 minutes long before the show ended.

That's nearly 10 minutes of Olympic stuff in 22 minutes and no real stories about what happened in the world that day. 

I sometimes watch a bit of David Muir over on ABC but it usually doesn't last long. I find him extremely long winded as he takes 60-80% of the story for himself in his intro before throwing to a reporter on the scene who winds up repeating a lot of it. I've actually found myself screaming at the screen as he goes on and on and on "just get to it already!" But he rarely does. 

If you're going to spend the money to send a trained reporter to another city or even country, let them tell the tale, for God's sake. You don't have to give it all away in an overly long throw.

That's why I'm glad the Games are done so we can go back to normal. Whatever that is these days. 

Congrats to Lester Holt and NBC for grabbing the top spot...this Newscast is now the one I watch  at 6:30 after many years of watching ABC. I like David Muir as an Anchor but everything about the ABC cast has become a little too dramatic for me while Lester seems to have more of a calming presence. What really put me off was the ABC intro...it seemed to go on ..and on...and on...with David telling me what was coming up. Then to him at the desk...where he proceeded to tell me again..what was coming up .Get to the damn top story!! Finally, with CBS looking for a new Anchor at 6:30..they might want to consider Tom Llamas (who was at ABC) now filling in for Lester at NBC  or Whit Johnson who fills in for David at ABC. Both do an excellent job. 

fyshtalk wrote:

Congrats to Lester Holt and NBC for grabbing the top spot...this Newscast is now the one I watch  at 6:30 after many years of watching ABC. I like David Muir as an Anchor but everything about the ABC cast has become a little too dramatic for me while Lester seems to have more of a calming presence. What really put me off was the ABC intro...it seemed to go on ..and on...and on...with David telling me what was coming up. Then to him at the desk...where he proceeded to tell me again..what was coming up .Get to the damn top story!! Finally, with CBS looking for a new Anchor at 6:30..they might want to consider Tom Llamas (who was at ABC) now filling in for Lester at NBC  or Whit Johnson who fills in for David at ABC. Both do an excellent job. 

In case you didn't see this, that's not the way CBS is going. I have my doubts about how it will go in the ratings, but at least they're trying something different. 

I agree with you about Muir. He seems to be a glory hog and wants to do all the stories himself. I've talked about the opening teasers here before. They're at least two minutes long every single night, by which point the other networks are almost halfway through their top story. 

The other thing that drives me crazy about ABC's package is that they have a 12 or 13 minute first pack or block, promo the coming story, then disappear for several minutes of spots. When they come back, they do about 30 secs. of copy or viz, then throw to another commercial break. And then they come back and repeat the process until the show ends. 

At least on NBC, when they come back from their breaks, they do a legit 2 minute or longer reporter story, before pausing again. 

I simply cannot figure out why ABC does so well in the ratings. It's very hard to watch.  

Speaking of NBC's 6:30 news, did anyone see it this evening?  Lester was anchoring from the Democratic convention and the broadcast was all pixelated and the sound kept dropping out.  I thought it might have been my TV or cable, but NBC Detroit was the only channel that this was happening.  Then I wondered if it was WDIV, but their local break was fine.  I checked back about five times during the cast and everytime the picture was pixelated or frozen and the sound dropped out constantly. It was unwatchable.  Anyone else have this problem at 6:30?  This evening everything else has been fine. 

I watched it on WDIV on Rogers Ignite and it was fine... no glitches. And yeah, that Peter Alexander live extro looked 'weird' that's the word of the campaign (Trumps campaign) apparently.

RadioActive wrote:

It's Games over and game over for NBC's short-lived lead. 

ABC World News Tonight with David Muir Regains Ratings Leading Over NBC Nightly News After Paris Olympics

A similar situation happened with the Morning shows. ABC's GMA  again took the lead in total viewers for the week of August 12 with 2.636M viewers to the 2.592M for NBC's Today. However, in the 25-54 group Today had 633,000. GMA had 422,000.