When Lester Holt announced he’d be stepping away from the anchor desk, the conventional wisdom was obvious: NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas would take a ratings hit. Lose the face of your franchise — someone widely regarded as one of the most trusted voices in broadcast news — and viewers are bound to follow him out the door. That’s just how it works, right? Except it hasn’t worked that way at all.
Tom Llamas has quietly steadied the ship. More than that, he’s actually helped close a gap that’s been widening for years.
Sure, most of the recent industry conversation has centered on the CBS Evening News. That’s understandable. The changes being implemented there under Bari Weiss carry a certain magnetism for media watchers. Every move generates headlines, and those headlines generate more conversation. It’s a cycle that feeds itself. But while everyone’s watching CBS stumble through its identity crisis, NBC’s been doing something worth noticing.
NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas still trails ABC’s World News Tonight in overall viewership. That’s not a secret. However, the gap in the Adults 25-54 demographic — the one advertisers actually care most about — has shrunk considerably. In the first quarter of 2025, NBC posted its closest margin to ABC in that demo in 25 quarters. You’d have to go all the way back to the final three months of 2019 to find a comparable showing. That’s not a fluke. It’s a trend.
The numbers back it up further. NBC averaged more than a million viewers in the 25-54 demo during Q1. That’s nearly double what CBS drew in the same category. And it puts Llamas right on ABC’s heels. For a newscast that was supposedly vulnerable after its anchor transition, that’s a remarkable position to be in.
Now, some will argue that total viewers are the only number that matters. There’s merit to that argument — overall ratings remain the broadest measure of a broadcast’s reach. It’s the way we judge every show, right, wrong, or indifferent.
But advertisers don’t just buy eyeballs. They buy the right eyeballs. Adults 25-54 represents prime spending years, and brands pay a premium to reach them. NBC News coming close to winning that demographic is enormously valuable. It’s the prize many advertisers are actually chasing.
There’s also a bigger strategic picture here that’s easy to miss. Each evening newscast isn’t just competing for nightly ratings — it’s functioning as a gateway drug for its parent network’s entire ecosystem. NBC wants you watching Tom Llamas at 6:30. Then maybe you stick around for primetime. Then The Tonight Show keeps you up a little later, which means your TV’s already tuned to NBC when you wake up. So you catch the Today show over your morning coffee. One touchpoint leads to the next. Before long, you’re a loyal NBC viewer across the board — and maybe even a Peacock subscriber or a regular on the NBC News NOW streaming channel.
That’s not an accident. It’s a now-tried-and-true strategy. I’ve been a long opponent of the term “ecosystem” being so prevalently used in our business. It sounds ridiculous, in my view. But, the more I think about it, the more it’s true. Especially in today’s TV realm. There are now legitimate ecosystems in television. And the nightly newscast is the foundation. If that foundation is cracking, everything built on top of it wobbles. But if it’s holding firm — if it’s actually gaining ground — then the whole structure benefits.
Llamas has done more than hold the fort following Holt’s departure. He’s rebuilt some credibility in a category the network hadn’t owned in years. The overall ratings race with ABC isn’t even close to over — and it may not be for a while. And I wouldn’t expect NBC Nightly News to overtake David Muir and ABC News’ World News Tonight in the overall ratings anytime soon.
But NBC’s closing argument in the demo battle is getting harder to dismiss. The quiet story of this ratings season isn’t what’s happening at CBS. It’s what’s happening at 30 Rockefeller Plaza every weeknight at 6:30.
Don’t sleep on it.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
