{"id":168111,"date":"2025-12-04T17:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T17:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/168111\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T17:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T17:57:11","slug":"inside-nbcs-push-to-win-new-ground-in-tvs-evening-news-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/168111\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside NBC’s Push to Win New Ground in TV’s Evening-News Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTom Llamas<\/a> says some of the nicest things \u2014 but they might still upset a top executive at rivals like ABC or CBS.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent weeks, audiences tuning into NBC\u2019s \u201cNBC Nightly News<\/a>,\u201d which Llamas has been anchoring since June, may have heard him reach out with a personal greeting: \u201cAnd before we go tonight, a number of new viewers have found us in the past couple weeks, and we want to thank them for joining us. Tonight, and always, we\u2019re here for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tImagine, a direct on-air shout out from the anchor of one of the nation\u2019s evening news programs!<\/p>\n

\n\tTo staffers at ABC News and CBS News, however, the words did not sound heartwarming at all. Llamas uttered the remarks while ABC\u2019s \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d was blocked from appearing on Google\u2019s YouTube <\/a>TV over a carriage dispute and as CBS News continued to grapple with a dual-anchor format on \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d <\/a>that has spurred some viewers to seek their fix of evening headlines elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith ad dollars for news growing more scarce, NBCUniversal is betting on Llamas to woo younger audiences to \u201cNightly,\u201d and that\u2019s not all. The company has also tapped him to boost interest in NBC News<\/a> Now, a live-streaming news service that has become a pivotal part of its overarching digital strategy. Once \u201cNightly\u201d ends, Llamas pivots immediately to \u201cTop Story,\u201d an an hour-long streaming program that starts within seconds of of his farewell to linear viewers. He is the only one of TVs current evening anchors to take part in such an arrangement<\/a> (CBS News recently canceled a similar assignment <\/a>for \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d anchor John Dickerson).<\/p>\n

\n\tNBC has been encouraged in recent months by ten \u201cNightly\u201d wins against \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d among viewers between 25 and 54, the \u201cdemo\u201d most coveted by advertisers in news programming. And a handful of NBC affiliates, including WLWT in Cincinnati, KSL in Salt Lake City and KARE in Minneapolis, have come to dominate that demo in their respective markets since Llamas took the reins of the show from his predecessor, Lester Holt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tLlamas tells viewers \u2018We\u2019re here for you\u201d every evening (not always preceded by outreach to those who may be sampling due to unusual circumstances). He doesn\u2019t do it lightly. He considers the news to be one of those elements people need to keep their lives in working order. \u201cI don\u2019t think that we\u2019re any different than a plumber, a dentist, or the guy who installed your cable or your Wi-Fi. We\u2019re there to provide a service,\u201d says Llamas during a recent conversation in his office at NBC News\u2019 headquarters at New York\u2019s Rockefeller Plaza. \u201cWe get to go to very interesting places and speak with interesting people, but at the end of the day, we\u2019re there to do a job, to give people important information and help them make decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNBC Nightly News\u201d isn\u2019t beating \u201cWorld News Tonight,\u201d and who\u2019s to say it will? ABC News\u2019 David Muir has become almost unassailable behind the desk, and season to date as of November 27, presides over an evening-news program that has nearly 1.6 million more viewers than \u201cNightly,\u201d and 94,000 more in the crucial demo. The show\u2019s viewership solidified anew after Disney\u2019s haggle with YouTube TV settled.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, there is still institutional memory at NBC News of the times when Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams owned the evenings. \u00a0NBC News executives have been encouraged by Llamas\u2019 ability to retain \u201cdemo\u201d viewers during the current TV season, and see a chance to try and peel away some of ABC\u2019s audience, including nights when \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d or other sports telecasts take \u201cWorld News\u201d off the schedule in certain parts of the country, or during surprising developments, such as Disney\u2019s recent battle with YouTube.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, Llamas is just the latest participant in a decades-old feud between Disney and Comcast, NBC News\u2019 parent. The skirmish began in earnest in 2004, when Comcast made an unsolicited bid to buy Disney during Michael Eisner\u2019s tenure as CEO that was ultimately rejected. The fight continued in 2018 when Comcast tried to wrest assets once owned by the former 21st Century Fox after Disney had an accepted offer in place. In the interim between corporate maneuvers, the battle typically manifests itself in a clash between ABC\u2019s and NBC\u2019s news divisions<\/a> for consumer attention.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth networks need viewership. Ad dollars earmarked for the three broadcast network evening-news programs have dipped 6% between 2020 and 2024, according to Guideline, a tracker of ad spending. In 2020, the three programs won $545.6 million, but by 2024, commanded $514.1 million. \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d won the lion\u2019s share of Madison Avenue\u2019s interest, luring $235.8 million in 2024, compared with $153.1 million for \u201cNightly:\u201d during\u00a0the same period. Guideline projects all three shows will cede ad dollars in 2025.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvening news is at a crossroads. Shifts in how people are consuming the news, changes in on-air talent and the current political environment have meant both a decline in ratings plus advertisers skittish on appearing next to hard news,\u201d says Sean Wright, Guideline\u2019s chief insights and analytics officer. \u201cThat combo has seen news shows across the board see significant declines in ad revenue this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat makes the news clash more interesting this time around is the fact that Llamas was previously an ABC News mainstay.<\/a> He was widely seen as heir apparent to Muir, though the six-year age difference between both men meant Llamas might wait all his career for a crack at the lead anchor title and never get it. Now he has injected some of ABC News\u2019 kinetic sensibility into \u201cNightly,\u201d which both Llamas and his executive producer, Matt Frucci, acknowledge has increased its story count during their early tenure.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think we\u2019ve picked up the pace of the show a little bit,\u201d says Llamas, fully cognizant of the new digital behaviors exhibited by younger viewers. \u201cWe are competing with the phone. We are competing with a lot of other news outlets out there.\u201d He still welcomes in-depth storytelling. \u201cWe\u2019re not afraid to double down on an investigation,\u201d he says. \u201cIf somebody has a great piece that\u2019s three minutes, four minutes, we\u2019re not afraid to put that in the first block, which a lot of people are moving away from. We\u2019re not going to move away from that.\u201d The team will also rush, he says, to get more late-breaking news into the telecast.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe duo has made other tweaks. There is a final segment called \u201cThere\u2019s Good News Tonight\u201d that tries to leave things on an optimistic note. Frucci originated the concept on weekends before moving over to work with Llamas during the week. Llamas has injected some spirit into the mix with a new franchise, \u201cThe Cost of Denial,\u201d that examines why people get turned down for insurance. \u201cWhat I was seeing over the last few years in reporting, and just talking to friends and family, was people were having issues with their insurance companies, whether it be health insurance or housing insurance. I kept hearing these stories over and over again,\u201d says Llamas. \u201cI come from local news. And so, in local news, a lot of it is trying to get results for your viewers. And for me, the core was we work for the viewer. And if the viewers are bosses, what are we doing for them? How can we get results for them? And I thought this was a good sort of franchise to start with. And it\u2019s grown into something. I didn\u2019t think it would catch on this quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch thinking may help viewers consider the evening news in a different way, suggests Janelle Rodriguez, NBC News\u2019 executive vice president of programming. \u00a0Llamas had an idea of \u201cservicing the viewers,\u201d she says. \u201cHow are we, helping people out? How are we making a difference? And I think that is really part of what makes him stand out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLlamas is polished on camera, even though challenges rise constantly behind the scenes. On one recent Monday evening, with less than three minutes to go before the \u201cNightly\u201d telecast started, producers wanted him to redo some of the headlines he read during the opening of the show. One of the big stories of the night was a look at tornadoes causing damage in Texas. The problem? The news had broken late in the day, and producers didn\u2019t want to overplay details of a group of people hunkered down in a home as the storms drew closer. So Llamas quickly retaped the opening of the show as precious seconds ticked away. He had other obstacles to face, including a rare breakdown of the microphone he was using in the first block of the show. Producers were able to get a report on the air as the anchor got a new mic, and Llamas would use a commercial break later in the show to redo the segment for viewers in other time zones.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou\u2019ve got to lock in,\u201d says Llamas of what he does when something goes awry. \u201cThe fact of the matter is you are live, and you have to pivot. Something is going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIf time is tight on \u201cNightly News,\u201d there is more room on \u201cTop Story,\u201d\u00a0 where Llamas has an hour to fill, giving correspondents more opportunity to explain nuances or show viewers what they did to get a story. There is time for longer exchanges with newsmakers. And Llamas may also explore lighter topics. Frucci oversees both programs, so the teams assigned to each can share information. While Llamas stays in NBC\u2019s famous Studio 1A to anchor both properties, the producer hightails out of one control room as \u201cNightly\u201d ends, scrambles through an underground mall below NBC\u2019s headquarters and then dashes to an upstairs studio to continue his duties.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe duo expects to take \u201cNightly\u201d wherever NBC goes in 2026. The network has a Super Bowl and a Winter Olympics to cover early next year. There will be an effort to cover the 250th birthday of the United States. And there are other projects. \u201cLike everybody else, we\u2019re working to get an interview with the president, and I\u2019m hopeful that\u2019s going to happen next year,\u201d says Llamas.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe has yet to show up in one of President Trump\u2019s rants on Truth Social. \u201cYou want to stick to reporting the news and stick to the facts and being tough but fair. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re always going to do,\u201d says Llamas. \u201cWe\u2019re going to report the story whether the administration likes it or not. And I think that\u2019s what all American journalists just want to do right now. You know, you\u2019re not trying to be antagonistic. You\u2019re just trying to cover the news.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith his \u201cNightly\u201d tenure in its earliest days, Llamas hadn\u2019t taken much time off until Thanksgiving. He wants to be in the chair in case someone who doesn\u2019t typically watch the show decides to check it out. \u201cI know people are going to be sampling. I know people are looking around out there,\u201d he says. \u201cI think every night matters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Llamas says some of the nicest things \u2014 but they might still upset a top executive at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,27960,109299,111,139,69,109300,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-168111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-nbc-news","10":"tag-nbc-nightly-news","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-tom-llamas","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}