NBC is holding crisis meetings over the future of “Nightly News With Brian Williams” after rival ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir” scored a historic ratings win.
For the week of Sept. 29, ABC’s newscast scored an across-the-board win in total viewers — 8.4 million — as well as the golden demos, adults 25 to 54 and adults aged 18 to 49. NBC’s “Nightly News” trailed with 8.2 million viewers.
Sources tell us that after the release of the figures Tuesday, “the NBC News morning call was very somber. A meeting was held with the ‘Nightly News’ executive producer to try to motivate the staff. There will be further crisis meetings.”
To make matters worse, we’re told that Brian Williams and NBC News president Deborah Turness — whose next mission is to halt the show’s declining ratings — don’t exactly see eye to eye.
One insider described their relationship as “icy.”
That relationship can’t have been helped after she said in an August Times piece, “NBC News hadn’t kept up with the times in all sorts of ways, for maybe 15 years . . . I think the organization had gone to sleep.” She later clarified this was about their digital operation.
An NBC rep said, “The only tension in our morning call was about getting our colleagues safely out of West Africa.” And about Deborah and Brian, “That is absolutely false. They talk all the time and meet multiple times a week. In fact, Deborah just drove to Philadelphia to see Brian accept an award at a lunch two weeks ago.”