Ratings slip causes tension at NBC over Lester Holt

The slip in NBC’s ratings have caused tension at the network and even Lester Holt’s position at NBC Nightly News is reportedly in jeopardy. 

ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir passed Holt in overall audience during the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, causing some top NBC executives to sweat.  

Sources told PageSix that if Holt’s stats were ever to get the point that the network needed to make a change in the anchor’s chair, NBC would be in a major bind. 

Sources claim that if Holt’s stats were ever to get the point that the network needed to make a change in the anchor’s chair, NBC would be in a major bind. They also claim that Today host Savannah Guthrie (right) would absolutely be a contender [for Nightly News]’

Today host Savannah Guthrie, who took over co-hosting with Hoda Kotb after Matt Lauer was fired for alleged sexual misconduct, ‘would absolutely be a contender [for Nightly News],’ sources told the news site. 

The sources also said that before ‘before Matt was fired, you could make a case to move Savannah to [‘Nightly News’], but it’s impossible to do that now’.

Holt replaced MSNBC’s Brian Williams in 2015, but even Williams seems to be doing fine at his new gig on MSNBC where his The 11th Hour show has been No. 1 in its time slot

Holt replaced MSNBC’s Brian Williams after Williams was suspended by NBC for embellishing stories about the Iraq War. 

But Williams seems to be doing just fine at his new gig on MSNBC where his The 11th Hour show has been No. 1 in its time slot.

An NBC News insider told PageSix that ‘Lester is beloved at the network, is doing outstanding work, and has Nightly News’s longest-winning demo streak in over 4.5 years’.

NBC was set up for a big night on Wednesday, with a broadcast full of exciting, medal-winning performance by Americans and an Alpine skiing competition featuring both Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin. 

Yet the 16.4 million viewers who watched NBC, NBCSN and streaming services in prime time was the second lowest of the Olympics so far, and down 19 per cent from the corresponding night in Sochi. 

For NBC alone, the drop was 30 per cent.  

The Olympics have been a guaranteed ratings winner for NBC ever since 1988, the year the network acquired the rights to broadcast the Summer Games.

In 2002, the network picked up the rights to the Winter Games, and in 2011 paid a record $4.38 billion to the International Olympic Committee to broadcast through 2020, the most expensive television contract in history.

On Saturday, NBC only managed to pull in 13.62 million viewers for a 3.2/13 ratings and share, the lowest primetime numbers yet for these Games.

That is just over a tenth of the 126.5 million viewers who tuned in on a Wednesday night back in 1994 to watch the ladies short program featuring Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.

NBC was set up for a big night on Wednesday, with a broadcast full of exciting, medal-winning performance by Americans and an Alpine skiing competition featuring both Lindsey Vonn (pictured) and Mikaela Shiffrin

Yet the 16.4 million viewers who watched NBC, NBCSN and streaming services in prime time was the second lowest of the Olympics so far, and down 19 per cent from the corresponding night in Sochi. For NBC alone, the drop was 30 per cent. Pictured is Lindsey Vonn