NBC Nightly News Gains Key Demo Under Tom Llamas Amid Viewership Shift

Since Tom Llamas took over as anchor of NBC Nightly News in June 2025, the program has shown mixed results in ratings. Initially, NBC Nightly News experienced a slight decline in total viewers and the key 25-54 demographic compared to Lester Holt's final month, with 5.674 million total viewers and 823,000 in the demo, while ABC's World News Tonight, led by David Muir, increased its lead with 7.308 million viewers. However, NBC has recently seen gains, including beating ABC in the 25-54 demographic on some nights and achieving its fourth consecutive week of growth in that demo, closing the gap with ABC by 19%. NBC Nightly News is also the only evening newscast to post year-over-year gains in both total viewers and the key demo, ranking as the second most-watched show of the week. Despite ABC’s overall lead in total viewers, NBC’s strategic promotional efforts for Llamas and his presence on multiple platforms appear to be contributing to a gradual recovery and narrowing of the ratings gap. Llamas has expressed ambition to eventually become the top evening news anchor, acknowledging that it will take time to surpass Muir and ABC.