• Digital Spy, Wednesday, December 6, 2006 10:45 AM

NBC News' experiment with more stories and fewer ads seems to have been an initial success. The networks evening news broadcast saw a ratings boost for its single-sponsor experiment.

On Monday night, "NBC Nightly News" was watched by 10.33 million people, up 800,000 from its November average and well atop newscasts on ABC and CBS. The show was sponsored by a single advertiser--Phillips--and only two short commercials were shown during the 30-minute newscast.

That let NBC feature longer stories, and garner thousands of supportive emails. On Tuesday night's show, anchor Brian Williams said he hoped there is more to come. "We are still reading and counting the emails, thousands of them, all positive, and that tells us you like what you saw," he noted. "There will be more, and we hope soon. We think last night was the start of something big."

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