USA · Bias: Center
The Walt Disney Company
ABC World News Tonight with David Muir is America's single most-watched network newscast, pulling around 8.2 million viewers a night — nearly 2 million more than second-place NBC Nightly News, the widest gap between the two networks in 31 years. It's Disney-owned broadcast news built for a mass, non-partisan living-room audience rather than a cable-opinion crowd. That non-partisan image took a hit in December 2024, when ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos paid Donald Trump $15 million (plus $1 million in legal fees) to settle a defamation suit, after Stephanopoulos said on-air that a jury found Trump liable for "rape" — the jury had actually found him liable for sexual abuse under New York law, a real but legally significant difference.
In March 1999, Barbara Walters sat down with Monica Lewinsky for the first interview since her affair with President Clinton became a national scandal and impeachment trial. ABC's goal was simple: get the interview everyone in America wanted, first. It worked spectacularly — an estimated 74 million people tuned in, giving the special a 48 share of all televisions in use that night, making it one of the most-watched news interviews in American TV history. It's remembered as a career-defining triumph for Walters, though critics at the time also accused ABC of turning a young woman's worst personal moment into a ratings spectacle rather than genuine accountability journalism.