• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, October 9, 2014

Two high-profile moves made this year by two networks have turned out to be the right ones.

You are welcome to disagree, of course -- based on whatever criteria you like. For example, if you’re like me, you might prefer Jay Leno to Jimmy Fallon, and never fully understood NBC’s zeal for replacing Leno with Fallon on “The Tonight Show.”

And if you’re like me, maybe you’re an admirer of Diane Sawyer, and never saw the necessity for replacing her with David Muir on ABC’s “World News.”

Nevertheless, both moves have borne the fruit NBC and ABC were hoping for -- improved ratings, which is the only currency that really matters.

Of the two, “World News” has been grabbing all the headlines this week, following the release on Tuesday of the most recent audience figures in the network newscast wars. The news was this: “World News” with Muir as its newly installed anchorman passed “The NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” in all of the three ratings categories that matter -- total viewers, 25-54 viewers and 18-49 viewers. 

ABC’s announcement of this ratings triumph noted that it was the first time that “World News” came out on top in all three categories in more than six years.  And the results snapped a “Nightly News” win streak in total viewers that stood for 263 weeks. Muir, 40, took over for Diane Sawyer, 68, on Sept. 2.

Specifically, for the week of Sept. 29-Oct. 3, “World News” averaged 8.416 million total viewers, 2.204 million 25-54 viewers and 1.528 million 18-49 viewers. For “Nightly News,” the tallies were 8.25 million total viewers, 1.937 million 25-54 viewers, and 1.416 million 18-49 viewers.

Rounding out the week’s network news averages, the results for third-place “CBS Evening News” were: 6.614 million total viewers, 1.602 million 25-54 viewers and 1.147 million 18-49 viewers.

A look at the numbers for the same week a year earlier indicates that “World News” realized double-digit percentage increases in all three categories this year, while “Nightly” was down 3 percent in total viewers, 13 percent in 25-54 viewers and 10 percent in 18-49 viewers.

As the newscast watchdog Andrew Tyndall of “The Tyndall Report” noted in a memo he distributed to TV reporters and columnists this week, the increases in the “World News” audience may have been due in part to continued viewer sampling of ABC’s new anchorman, plus a move on the part of ABC’s newscast to devote more time to celebrity and entertainment stories -- something hard-news traditionalists would be correct in bemoaning.

Tyndall said he’s not ready to declare “World News” the leader in network news until the Muir newscast demonstrates it can put together a string of consecutive weekly ratings wins.

Okay, fine. For now, however, ABC has to be pleased with its decision to replace Sawyer with Muir.

At NBC, however, the “World News” triumph has everyone in a tizzy. Many of the stories this week about last week’s news ratings suggest that NBC is in a state of acute alarm over the faltering fortunes of the news division’s three highest-profile shows -- “Nightly News,” “Today” and “Meet the Press,” all of which were once dominant in their time periods, but now lag. NBC News President Deborah Turness -- an outsider who came to NBC from British television in August 2013 -- is said to be in the hot seat.

Meanwhile, the situation is much less dramatic in late-night, where Jimmy Fallon (who, like Muir, is 40) has settled in as the ratings leader. For the week of Sept. 22-28, Fallon’s “Tonight Show” led “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC and “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS in total viewers and 18-49 viewers -- a position Fallon has held onto ever since he took over last February for Jay Leno, 64 (who, it should be said, handed Fallon a show that was already the leader in both categories).

Specifically, according to the latest Nielsen numbers, “The Tonight Show” averaged 3.894 million total viewers, with a 1.09 rating in the demo, according to audience data released Thursday morning for the week of Sept. 29-Oct. 3. Kimmel was in second place with 2.767 million viewers and 0.73 in the demo.  Kimmel’s idol – Letterman – had 2.623 million viewers, 0.52 in the demo.  (It should be noted that the Letterman show was delayed last Thursday due to CBS’s Thursday Night Football game.)

A year ago (specifically, the week of Sept. 23-27, 2013) -- when Leno was still on “The Tonight Show” -- the total viewer count was 3.678 million, with a 0.95 in the demo. The fact is, Fallon has improved on Leno’s audience only modestly, but in the TV business, a modest increase is better than a precipitous decline, which is what happened when Conan O’Brien took over for Leno in ’09.

Personally?  I still miss Jay Leno, and I still regard Diane Sawyer as the most elegant personality in television news. But, as hard-nosed business decisions go, I have to concede that replacing each of them was the right thing to do.