Ratings for the NBC and ABC nightly newscasts were down significantly last week. NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams once again led the field with 8.61 million viewers, but second-place ABC World News with Diane Sawyer narrowed the gap with 7.84 million -- just 770,000 viewers behind NBC. The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric remained steady at 5.88 million, ticking up a bit on Thursday night as viewers tuned in to hear Couric's swansong as anchor of the nightly newscast. Meanwhile, today's Hollywood Reporter attributed a spike in the ratings for the syndicated celebrity news shows Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, Extra, and Insider Weekend to the "love child" scandal involving former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. ET, the highest rated of the lot, was up 5 percent to 5.6 million viewers; Insider Weekend was up a staggering 17 percent

25/05/2011