Katie Couric, Brian Williams lost a combined 690,000 Viewers last Year

In an unexpected turn of events, ABC's Charles Gibson has taken the nightly news Crown.

ABC, the perennial runner-up, has taken the ratings lead for the 2nd time in three weeks. This is made all the more surprising by the fact that Charles Gibson was originally passed over for the job--but due to an attack involving an Iraqi roadside bomb that nearly killed the original choice, Gibson was given the chair. Since taking the chair Gibson's viewer base has grown by leaps and bounds while the other two networks, NBC and CBS, have seen nothing by shrinking ratings. Last year Brian Williams lost 570,000 viewers and Katie Couric lost 120,000. Williams' loss has allowed Gibson to catch up and (at some points) surpass the ratings of Williams, in the last 4 weeks Gibson has averaged 43,000 more viewers per night. Couric's losses are to be seen as even worse--she already trailed by some 2,000,000 viewers. All these losses have sent shockwaves through the executives of the CBS and NBC companies. NBC in particular may end up firing their current Nightly News head. Looks like both Couric and Williams aren't sitting too well with viewers.