ABC News said viewership for “World News Tonight with David Muir” on Monday night was up 9 percent from the same period last year.
The network pointed to the poor ratings amid claims from the right that World News Tonight’s viewership took a hit following last week’s presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, which Muir and ABC News Now anchor Lindsey Davis co-hosted.
According to the latest figures, “World News Tonight” drew 7.6 million viewers, the highest number for any Monday night show in the last five weeks. NBC Nightly News had 6.15 million viewers and the CBS Evening News had 4.6 million viewers.
Viewer ratings are from Nielsen via ABC News.
Trump and his supporters slammed ABC News after the debate, claiming the network was biased against Trump because Muir and Davis fact-checked some of Trump’s claims at different times. Right-wing figures also spread conspiracy theories that the network fed questions to Harris, despite a lack of evidence. The network said it follows debate rules by not sharing questions or talking points with the campaigns in advance.
In the three days following the debate, World News Tonight averaged 6.68 million viewers, up from 6.74 million in the three days prior to the debate, during which the show was not available to DirecTV subscribers due to a broadcast dispute that ended last weekend.