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Viewership up for CBS' Pelley, NBC and ABC rivals

NEW YORK — Viewership is up at the "CBS Evening News" since Scott Pelley took over as anchor in June. But the same can be said for his rivals.

The Nielsen Co. said Pelley's third-place newscast reached an average of 5.55 million viewers during his first five weeks in the anchor chair. That's up 7 percent over the same five weeks in 2010 when Katie Couric was the anchor.

During the same time, Brian Williams' "Nightly News" on NBC averaged 7.88 million people watching each night, and ABC's "World News" with Diane Sawyer had 7.12 million. For each, that's up 5 percent from 2010.

The network evening news — a format that has seen multiple death sentences over the years — has picked up more than a million viewers collectively since last year.