ABC's "World News Tonight" has pushed NBC's "Nightly News" off its perch at the top of the ratings race – and the peacock network is reportedly in a panic.
The New York Post reports NBC is holding "crisis meetings" over the future of its nightly broadcast anchored by Brian Williams after ABC scored a historic ratings win with newly installed David Muir at the anchor desk.
Muir officially replaced former anchor Diane Sawyer Sept. 1.
For the week of Sept. 29, ABC’s newscast scored an across-the-board win in total viewers — 8.4 million — as well as the coveted demographic of adults 25 to 54 and adults aged 18 to 49, the Post notes.
NBC’s “Nightly News” trailed with 8.2 million viewers.
After the release of the ratings data Tuesday, "The NBC News morning call was very somber," the Post quoted an unnamed source saying.
"A meeting was held with the ‘Nightly News’ executive producer to try to motivate the staff. There will be further crisis meetings.”
Tbe Post also reported the relationship between Williams and NBC News president Deborah Turness is "icy" after she was quoted in a New York Times story in August declaring: "NBC News hadn't kept up with the times in all sorts of ways, for maybe 15 years . . . I think the organization had gone to sleep."
The Post said she later clarified she was talking about the network's digital operation.
"The only tension in our morning call was about getting our colleagues safely out of West Africa," an NBC spokesman told the Post in response to its story, adding the newspaper's gossip about the relationship between Turness and Williams was "absolutely false."
"They talk all the time and meet multiple times a week," the spokesman told the Post. "In fact, Deborah just drove to Philadelphia to see Brian accept an award at a lunch two weeks ago."
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