The Startribune.com and the Associated Press are reporting:

“After two years of relentlessly bad ratings news, Katie Couric finally has something she can smile about.

The “CBS Evening News” anchor remains in third place behind NBC and ABC. But the average of 7.4 million people who watched her newscast the week of Dec. 15-21 was better than any week since February 2007, five months after she moved over from NBC’s “Today” show.

CBS had another dominant week in prime time, and has now become the only one of the top four networks to increase its audience over the past year. Of the 44 different half-hours in prime-time last week, CBS was the most popular network for 32 of them, or 73 percent, Nielsen said.

For the week, network averages were: CBS, 11.2 million viewers (7.0 rating, 12 share); NBC, 7.5 million (4.7, 8); Fox, 6.1 million (3.8, 6); ABC, 5.1 million (3.2, 5); My Network, 1.8 million (1.1, 2); CW, 1.5 million (1.0, 2); ION, 800,000 (0.5, 1).

In the evening news race: NBC “Nightly News,” 10.1 million (6.6, 12); ABC “World News,” 9.2 million (6.1, 11); “CBS Evening News,” 7.4 million (4.9, 9).”

Photo by MiaJunior/BuzzFoto.com