Tsunami news drives ratings CNN

[flygal]

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/05/nielsens.ap/index.html

snip

NEW YORK (AP) -- A hunger for news following the disastrous tsunami was evident in last week's Nielsen ratings.

"Dateline NBC" finished just short of Nielsen Media Research's top 10 for its Sunday broadcast, which featured reports from Thailand and Sri Lanka. And an ABC "Primetime Live" special on the disaster was the most-watched prime-time show on Wednesday.

The story also helped the evening news broadcasts, which normally would expect a slow week between Christmas and New Year's. Instead, the "CBS Evening News" and ABC's "World News Tonight" were both up 12 percent in viewers over this season's average, and NBC's "Nightly News" was up 8 percent.

"World News Tonight," where Elizabeth Vargas subbed for a vacationing Peter Jennings, had its most-watched week since last February.


I'm glad I was only able to watch CNN International. The same stories repeated every hour, I can imagine people tuned in quite a bit last week to the news stations.