Through 4 weeks of the 2008-9 broadcast prime-time season, only Univision is showing gains vs. the 2007-8 season. As of this week, all of the English networks are now negative in all broad categories vs. their 2007-8 results, most substantially so.
Fox which had clung to some increases through last week saw its comparisons go sharply negative vs. last season. I’m certain it’s because, unlike last year when it had the baseball ALCS playoff featuring the Red Sox, this year it had the NLCS. With the World Series also predicted to be a ratings loser, Fox’s year to year comparisons are going to get worse, perhaps much worse.
The CW also had some small increases vs. last season through last week, but another disastrous Friday and Sunday have pushed their comparisons solidly negative across the board.
CBS continued to close the gap with last season’s results and I’d expect more progress in the coming weeks. It’s the best performing network of the fall, not only in an absolute sense, but relative to last season as well.
ABC’s and NBC’s tales of woe vs. last season are similar, both are down 9-16% in every broad audience measure.
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.
I know that viewership is down altogether and that is the way it goes regularly, I expect next year it will be down for this year as well.
But I can’t help but figure that the quality of shows are just not supporting the economical market base as to what viewers are looking for.
This is not a post to supplement Moonlight, but I’m just saying that since the economy is belly up, in relation to the economicl woes, McDonalds and other franchises that support depression attitudes, in way of pick me ups, are showing marked increase in profits. That is why ticket sales are up for the Movies. Maybe there just are not enough of those types of shows on tv, shows that support a real escapist attitude? I like the CSI and NCIS franchaise, but it started out really depressing this season, people like me want to see more up beat stuff. It is weird, but a lot of the networks have less feelgood storylines, like Ugly Betty, Supernatural, even One life to Live has a dour scope to it. Where is all the fun in things lately? I just don’t get it.
Maybe that is why so many people tune into american Idol, people feel a small investmemt in the candidates, and when the one they back win, they feel a sense of accomplishment and happiness. I don’t get that with a lot of shows these days, I don’t feel as if my life depended on the character making it through a coma or anything like that.
moonlightfan,
I agree. Its why NBC’s whole theme this year was to try to be more escapist with their shows. However, its clear that viewers are not running from the stronger, more established procedural / crime dramas of the networks either. I think it is mostly cable. Cable networks have a lot more time to devoted to promotion due to the fact that even the biggest cable nets like USA and TNT take their time with their original series and if it doesn’t pan out, there have reruns. The broadcast nets don’t have this luxury.
Also, small tidbit about Moonlight fans. Its not like everyone on this site hates Moonlight fans. Its just that I remember like one time, this blogger (don’t remember) merely mentioned that Moonlight MIGHT be canceled (this a while ago) and like some fans just attacked him with floods of comments and its was really ugly, and a smidge weird/annoying. So, that’s why people think of dedicated Moonlight fans on the internet as like scary or annoying and such. BUT that’s all over right…?
Small follow up, not trying to be hostile towards you, just want to explain something.
NO problem, I get what you mean, but I missed all of that. But I wonder if we would ever have a Who Shot JR moment again, the only one that came close was when the Sopranos screen went blank and everyone was talking about it, technically that was not a Feelgood show, but you still felt as if your life was invested in Tony and his family getting through the drama. But like you said and I pointed out, that was a Cable show, it got around to building a worldwide fanbase, if it were Broadcast Network, it would be extinct by now.
As a matter of fact, I am kind of surprised that HBO has picked up True Blood, it just doesn’t seem like an HBO kind of programme. But neither had sex and the City seemed that way either. Their programming Exec seems to know a lot more than I do I guess.
I wonder what the numbers would look like if each of the first four weeks didn’t have a debate sucking the air out of them. This week is the first “normal” week (except for baseball, but FOX paid for that programming choice) of the season.
Are these statistics just comparing live viewing in 2008 to live viewing in 2007? If so, then they need to be adjusted to account for the millions of additional homes that have DVRs in 2008 that did not have them in 2007. A story whose main message is that people who newly obtained DVRs in 2008 actually use those DVRs is not quite as newsworthy.
Rob, it measures Live plus same day DVR viewing. Typically, about half of the DVR viewing for a show occurs the same night it aired. More for some reality shows (with American Idol, it was over 70%) and less for shows airing at 10pm.
There were millions of DVRs added into the mix, it’s true. Nielsen estimates DVR penetration increased from roughly 21% of homes to 25% of homes from season to season so that’s probably around 4.6 million new DVR homes. While that surely has played some role, I think what denverdean cites (the debate coverage) is likely a bigger contributer. Still, I agree the changes in DVR audience from year to year are probably worth noting in the boilerplate of these posts..
That gives me an idea of looking at Live+SD and Live+7 trends year to year. I’ll put it on my list.
I wouldn’t call this a typicall week though, at least not until a few days after the election. I could be wrong, but my guess is that besides the debates, the whole election coverage is encouraging people to watch more news worthy programmes than what they are really into in terms of viewing.
moonlightfan, there has definitely been a shift to cable networks this season, and the biggest winners have been the cable news networks. No question that the dynamics around this broadcast season have been changed by the election.
yeah, and I was considering with the writers strike as well, this is not really a typical season to begin with. Wasn’t Eli Stone originally a programme to save ABC’s lineup? And low and behold, it is a show that should have been left on the chopping block. I suspect that it will take until next year, maybe summer, to let all the bad storylines and cheesy scripts to filter through and for the programming world to get back on track. Unless the Actors strike, then the industry could see some true problems in their programming schedule.
This is what I’m talking:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i1e78793628949bf0d7261030ca1fd817
I gather a lot of scripts would not be up to par for a while. Though I feel as though I am pulling a Nielsen: taking one story and attibuting it to the whole industry
just to prove a point.
This has to do something with the bad economy right now!
Could this be a trend: http://www.tv.com/story/11614.html
Is it possible that there is an excess of bad scripts that was okayed due to the writer’s strike?
moonlightfan, That story was from last month and has nothing to dow with script quality.
ABCFanatic, more likely its just more of the decades long trend to cable. While broadcast is down this season, cable on average is up.
Might this be a major shift in demographics??
With a growing number of Hispanics, and the percentage of the population that is Hispanic rapidly rising, Univision’s ratings are way up. Maybe that’s why they’re the only broadcast network up in year-to-year ratings.
I would suspect that in markets that have large Hispanic populations (Miami, Los Angeles, El Paso, Laredo), Univision is probably the dominant network in those cities.
Joseph, I don’t think I’d call it a “shift” because I don’t think Univision’s increases are coming from the English broadcast networks. The trend in increased viewership for Univision is likely tied to population and demographic income increases in the US Hispanic population, plus perhaps (although I have no way to know) programming improvements by Univision.
The overall losses in the English broadcast networks are pretty much 100% explainable by a shift of those viewers to cable networks. As it has been for the last 25+ years, broadcast viewing is down, cable viewing is up, and overall TV viewing is fairly stable.
And you are correct about local markets. We don’t do much with local numbers because we don’t see them on a regular basis, but my understanding is that the local Univision news broadcasts in many of those cities are #1.