After only 3 weeks of the 2008-9 broadcast season, only Univision is showing strong gains vs. the 2007-8 season with double digit audience growth in most areas. Among the English networks, Fox clings to a tiny increase in average viewers and a 3.3% increase in adults 25-54 and the CW has a 1.1% increase in adults 18-34. Everywhere else there are declines. On average, the top 5 English networks are down 9% in average viewers and between 10% and 12% in adult demo group viewers.
Note: In previous charts/posts, I calculated the network averages without weighting for the broadcast minutes of each network. That overweighted the average for Fox and CW numbers because they broadcast fewer minutes/week and produced incorrect averages. For example for this week’s averages, the difference would have been about 1.5%. From now on, all network averages will be broadcast time weighted as they should have been. The individual network numbers past and future are unaffected by this.
Of English networks, Fox is in best shape with a mix of small advances and declines in audience segments. The CW has lost almost 15% of its audience, but has gained 1.1% vs. last year among adults 18-34 (and likely more among women, but we don’t see that data from Nielsen). If they really can build a network around 3 nights a week for young women it may be working.
With CSI back in its lineup, CBS closed the gap a bit with last season’s results and I’d expect some additional progress in the coming weeks, but it currently is down 6-15% in different audience areas. ABC has similar declines of 8-15% from last year’s audience. NBC is faring the worst, with declines of 13-15% across its audience demos.
Our chart shows broadcast network prime-time season to date average prime-time viewership for the 2008-9 season compared to the 2007-8 season. Click the image for a full sized chart.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
It’s unfortunate that there’s no easy way (and we lack the data even if there was) to look at the bigger picture. CBS probably would look better if it had started CSI earlier — this chart compares this year with one CSI to last year with THREE CSI by now.
But CBS still may be in the worst shape overall. We know from other sources that ad supported cable viewing is up over this same period. ABC (ESPN, ABC Family, etc) and NBC (USA, SciFi, Bravo, Oxygen, etc) and to a lesser degree, Fox have big cable presences. CBS has Showtime, which isn’t ad supported, and that’s about it. And no, you can’t count the CW as a CBS cable channel
And NBC would argue that they still have yet to premiere (as of this chart), Worst Enemy, 30 Rock and Crusoe. Although, they’ll not have the impact of a CSI.
Of course, the only one of these charts that’s going to count everything is the one at the end of the traditional season in May. Still, seeing how things are shaping up every week is interesting.
Let me add that what really surprises me is that ABC isn’t doing relatively better. I figured that ABC was positioned to do much better than they have so far this fall.
Isnt a TV show’s main purpuse is to generate revenue from advertisements, and with this trend of declining ratings, when (or at what ratings) do you guys predict that advertisers will start to hesitate to pay large sums of money for prime time slots
Alec, I’d have thought that day would have already come, but broadcast television is still the only place for an advertiser to reach a mass audience, even if that audience is much, much smaller than it once was.
so guys, do you guys think that with the overall drop so large for networks like ABC that shows won’t be viewed so harsh with their respective drops. Specifically shows like Pushing Daisies and Chuck whose drops seem to mirror the overall drops
Rob, the Renew or Cancel Index doesn’t lie. With their current numbers neither show is likely to be back next year.
well i guess i just have to hope that over the next few weeks these particular shows have a growth in audience to give the networks some reason to keep them. Chuck went up this week so hopefully that becomes a trend and i will be waiting for pushing daisies numbers tomorrow
This shows that the writers strike really hurt the Networks. Seemed to me that Broadcast had pretty good momentum before that and people were viewing some of their shows as event TV.
Broadcast shot itself in the foot ….and it hurts.
I just had to find this to use for an essay I’m writing, and thought it would be interesting to share here. http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2001/jan01/jan15/3_wed/news3wednesday.html This article says the nets lost nearly 10% of viewers after the strike of ‘88. Looks like it’s happening again.