August 1, 2002

TOTAL AUDIENCE OF THREE NETWORK EVENING NEWS BROADCASTS

FOR 2001-02 SEASON DWARFS THAT OF THE FIVE CABLE NEWS

NETWORKS BY EVERY MEASUREMENT

In A Typical Day, Nearly 35 Million Viewers Watch At Least One of the Network Evening News Broadcasts

Nearly 75 Million Viewers -- 28% Of All Americans -- Watch at Least One of the Network Evening News Broadcasts During an Average Week

The 2001-02 season's audience reach figures for the three network evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC combined reveal the continuing health of the genre and clearly confirm the overwhelming dominance of network news audiences over those of cable news. The data was compiled by CBS Research.

"An objective and direct comparison of news audiences shows how vital a role the network evening broadcasts play on the national scene compared to cable," said Andrew Heyward, President, CBS News. "Moreover, the network evening news audience this season was the largest in four years."

"This data proves yet again that the vast majority of American viewers turn to the networks for their news," said David Poltrack, Executive Vice President, Research and Planning, CBS Television. "The hard numbers are indisputable."

The average weekly reach (unduplicated or unique viewers) of the three 30-minute weekday network evening news broadcasts -- "ABC World News Tonight," "CBS Evening News" and "NBC Nightly News" - totals nearly 75 million viewers. This compares to just 9.6 million viewers across the five cable news networks -- CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC and CNN Headline News -- during the same time period. These numbers are a direct comparison of audience sizes utilizing the same measurement, an "apples to apples" comparison.

The average weekly reach of the three evening newscasts - 75 million viewers - is greater than the average weekly reach of all five cable news networks' entire schedules - seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Thus, the three network evening newscasts reach more people in 7 ½ hours per week than the five cable news networks reach in 168 hours per week.

The average daily reach (unique viewers) of the three 30-minute network evening news broadcasts totals 34.7 million unique viewers. Comparatively, this figure is:

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CBS News...

? More than 10 times the combined average daily reach (6:30-7:00 PM) of 3.2 million viewers for the five cable news networks;

? Almost three times the combined average primetime reach (8:00-11:00 PM) of 11.9 million viewers for the five cable news networks; and

? An 11% advantage over the combined average daily reach of 31.2 million viewers for the five cable news networks for an entire 24-hour day.

During the 2001-02 season, the three network evening news broadcasts delivered a combined average audience of 30.2 million viewers each day. This represents an increase of 5% over the 2000-01 season (28.9m) and is, in fact, the highest since the 1998-99 season (31.2m). In addition, viewership of all three network evening news broadcasts grew compared to last season. (Nielsen defines average audience as the number of viewers tuned to a program during the average minute on any given day.)

The evening news broadcasts' average audience of 30.2 million viewers is just as impressive - and dominant - when put into the context of the most popular programs on television for the 2001-02 season, excluding Olympics coverage. That audience would rank eighth among all of the season's primetime programs, placing it ahead of every episode of "Friends," other than its series premiere and finale, every episode of "E.R." and "C.S.I.," and the acclaimed Carol Burnett "Show Stoppers" special.

1. Super Bowl XXXIV 86,801,000
2. Super Bowl Post-Game 49,756,000
3. Academy Awards 41,782,000
4. World Series Game 7 39,084,000
5. "9/11" Special (CBS) 38,997,000
6. "Friends" Finale 34,910,000
7. "Friends" Premiere 31,696,000
8. Combined Network Evening News 30,190,000
9. "Friends" 30,038,000
10. Carol Burnett "Show Stoppers" 29,797,000

    Additionally, the average daily reach of the network news programs reaches nearly twice as many news consumers on any given day as the top 30 U.S. daily newspapers combined -- 17,745,200 readers (for period Nov. 2, 2001 to March 31, 2002).

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Press Contacts: Sandy Genelius 212/975-7525 smg@cbsnews.com

Andie Silvers 212/975-3328 silversa@cbsnews.com