Demos: The NFL Brings Back Broadcast Viewership
Broadcast: As the season shifts, so too do the viewing habits of general audiences. With fall’s arrival comes the influx of new content. Typically this would include a plethora of new and returning scripted series, but the now-concluded writers strikes have resulted in notable gaps in the broadcast programming schedule. Something that remains unaffected by the strikes, however, is live sports. Broadcast being the primary platform in which audiences can enjoy live sports, specifically the NFL, is the greatest asset of the country's most popular networks. Ultimately, it was NBC that benefited from this the most this September, significantly outperforming the competition to become the most watched network for the first time in months.
Though streaming services such as Hulu and Prime Video have made recent efforts to break into the live sports market, the vast majority of audiences still turn to broadcast when looking to catch their favorite teams compete. Whether in the comfort of their own home or at their local sports bar, audiences across the country have relied on broadcast for decades for their sports coverage. There is no denying the massive scope of the NFL and the impact it has on ratings. This month saw the average viewership for NBC rise to 4.560 million, over 2 million more than the previous month. One game night saw NBC’s viewership reach a staggering high of 23.034 million. This number is an outlier when compared to most other days of the month, dropping as low as 650,000 viewers on one day in particular. ABC also reaped the benefits of the NFL’s return, with its average viewership rising to 3.463 million. CBS averaged 2.828 million viewers followed by FOX averaging 1.734 million viewers, meaning every major network saw an increase in viewership. The CW also experienced this surge in viewership, rising to 317,000 average viewers up from 286,000 viewers in August; this is most likely boosted by their coverage of college sports as well as their Emmy Award-winning weekly studio series, Inside the NFL.
Cable: Much like broadcast, cable is experiencing somewhat of a drought of new scripted content. Unlike broadcast, however, cable does not have live sports to fall back on. As a result, many networks performed notably worse compared to the previous month. In particular, BET is one network that experienced the greatest fall off in viewership, dropping to 281,000 average viewers from 346,000 in August. BET Her dropped 27,000 average viewers from 42,000. Cleo TV and Comedy.TV saw significantly fewer fluctuations in viewership, averaging 16,000 and 8,000 respectively. Justice Central jumped up to 16,000 average viewers while Magnolia Networks fell to 151,000 average viewers. OWN dipped slightly to 114,000 average viewers while The Weather Channel once again experienced growth, rising to 174,000 average viewers.
Spanish Language: The impact of the current creative climate in the entertainment industry is less dramatically affecting the viewership of many major Spanish speaking networks. Audience habits remained relatively consistent, with minimal average viewership fluctuations when compared to last month. As usual, Univision remains one the most watched Spanish language stations, averaging 1.120 million daily viewers. Telemundo’s average viewership came in at 682,000, nearly identical to the viewership it experienced in August. UniMas experienced a slight increase in viewership, rising to an average of 274,000 daily viewers. Smaller networks like TUDN and Universo saw their viewership decline, dropping to averages of 76,000 and 53,000 respectively. Gala Novelas and BeIN Sports Espanol received average daily viewerships of 12,000 and 3,000 respectively.
Streaming Viewership in %
Streaming: For the first time in months, August saw the overall viewership for streaming services decline, dropping to 38.3% of total television viewership. These fluctuations are most likely a result of many students returning to school as well as the influx of live sports content. YouTube and Netflix continue to be the two most utilized services, accounting for 23.4% and 21.4% of streaming viewership respectively. Hulu maintains third place with 9.4% of streaming views. Right behind it as always is Prime Video with 8.9% of streaming views. Disney+ remained consistent with 5.2% of streaming views while Tubi and Max once again put up nearly identical numbers, each accounting for 3.4% of streaming views. Peacock managed to outperform Roku this month with 3.1% compared to 2.9%. Paramount+ matched Roku’s 2.9% as Pluto remained in last place with 2.3%. The remaining 13.7% of viewership went to other streaming services, including high-bandwidth video streaming on television and apps designed to deliver live broadcast and cable programming.