World News Tonight with David Muir quarterly ratings drop by nearly 1m viewers as rival NBC show comes close behind

World News Tonight is the most-watched news program on television

WORLD News Tonight with David Muir’s quarterly ratings have dropped by nearly 1 million viewers.

Journalist David, 51, hosts ABC’s World News Tonight, the most-watched news program on broadcast television.

4

David Muir on World News Tonight

4

Rival Tom Llamas on NBC Nightly News
But despite the achievement, ratings for the news program have slipped this quarter.

Ratings for the second quarter of 2025 brought in 7,370,000 viewers.

This is nearly one million viewers less than the first quarter of the year with 8,132,000 fans.

Trailing behind David is NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas in second place.

The second quarter brought in 5,788,000 viewers.

Ratings for the rival program jump up each week.

CBS is also in the running with 60 Minutes Presents, coming close behind NBC Nightly News.

In January, David was seen using a clothespin on the back of his fire jacket while reporting live on the Los Angeles wildfires.

ABC anchor David Muir caught sprucing up his firefighter jacket to look more butch during live TV report from LA fires
As he turned around to show the destruction, a clip holding his fire jacket from behind was revealed to the viewers.

The clothespin was seemingly used to make David look slimmer on camera.

ABC viewers slammed David for worrying about his appearance while Los Angeles continued to burn.

One viewer slammed, “He used clothes pins to pull in the fire jacket he’s wearing as a prop just so he would look snacky for TV.”

Jack Osbourne, reality star and son of late rocker Ozzy, wrote, “Nice jacket bro.

Others called David “pathetic.”

Aside from World News Tonight, David also hosts 20/20 with Deborah Roberts.

4

World News Tonight leads other programs in broadcast ratingsCredit: AP

4

David came under fire earlier this year for using a clothespin to tighten his jacket