Chasing the Ghost of Walter Cronkite
ON APRIL 6, 12 MILLION AMERICANS WATCHED AS ABC news anchor David Muir called coronavirus “our Pearl Harbor, our 9/11 moment.” Beginning that day and for the rest of the following week ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir did something that even the late, great Walter Cronkite had been unable to do: beat out everything else on television to become the highest-rated show on the air.
was the highest-rated show for six of eight weeks in March and April, topping the likes of highly-rated network entertainment shows like and ABC is not the only news operation feeling the boost; competitors and have also been beating most entertainment programming. For the six weeks ending April 26, ratings for ABC’s newscast surged 48 percent compared to the same time a year ago, while NBC and CBS were up 37 percent and 24 percent, respectively. (Cable
