Ithaca College graduate David Muir ’95 has made broadcast history. According to Nielsen Media Research, “World News Tonight with David Muir”—ABC’s flagship nightly news program—spent 31 of 52 weeks in the 2021-22 season as the #1 program of the week in total viewers on all of broadcast and cable (excluding sports), a historic first for a newscast.
Since the 2016-17 season, “World News Tonight” has ranked as the most-watched evening television newscast. “NBC Nightly News” had dominated the TV news ratings battle for more than a decade prior to Muir taking over the anchor desk at ABC in September of 2014. Since the pandemic began in March of 2020, “World News Tonight” has spent more than 70 weeks as the most-watched program across broadcast and cable (excluding sports).
The Emmy Award-winning newscaster has maintained strong ties with Ithaca College since graduating from the Roy H. Park School of Communications, serving as Commencement speaker in 2011 and receiving an honorary doctorate and the Jessica Savitch Award of Distinction for Excellence in Journalism from the college in 2015. Muir regularly Skypes into the Park School’s first-year course, S'Park, and in December of 2020 he participated in a virtual alumni panel discussion on “Shifts in Leadership During COVID.”