• by Wayne Friedman , January 5, 2012

Good news is good TV rating news for all three broadcast networks last year.

Brad Adgate, senior vp and corporate research director of Horizon Media, said all three networks improved their audience delivery for their evening newscasts in 2011. NBC's "NBC Nightly News" averaged 8.8 million viewers  (up from 8.5 million); ABC's "World News Tonight", 7.8 million (up from 7.4 million); and CBS' "CBS Evening News", was at 6.0 million (up from 5.6 million).

Adgate says ABC and CBS had its best results since 2008, with NBC having its best year since 2006. NBC’s lead over ABC dropped to 932,000 in 2011 from 1.2 million in 2010.