The evening-news ratings race is about to heat up

The ABC/NBC news-ratings war between David Muir and Lester Holt is about to get even more intense.

ABC’s evening broadcast, “World News Tonight with David Muir,” took its first-ever win for a full year in the all-important C3 Nielsen ad ratings, ABC revealed on Monday. C3 ratings first debuted in 2007.

Muir beat “NBC Nightly News” — anchored by both Brian Williams and Lester Holt over the past 12 months — by a hair in the key category of C3 adults 25 to 54 years old, ABC said.

Muir, who recently racked up an interview with Pope Francis, notched 1.972 million viewers in the category, while NBC came in at 1.967 million for the year through Sept. 20.

The ABC network is about to start an ad campaign touting its win. ABC insiders claim that the show’s ad revenue is up 11 percent year on year.

The 41-year-old Muir, who took the reins from Diane Sawyer in September 2014, is in an all-out dogfight with Holt, who draws the most total viewers each evening.

Muir started out strong but drifted off somewhat, news analyst Andrew Tyndall said. And his broadcast has reinvented the newscast by focusing on strong video visuals versus coverage of abstract foreign policy, he added.

“Considering what’s happening in prime time, the numbers in total viewers for news are enormous,” Tyndall said.

However, Holt, 56, has held his own since NBC named him permanent anchor after predecessor Williams was caught lying about his war coverage. Holt has been No. 1 in the C3 ratings since June 22, NBC News said.