Ask Not Where the Broadcast Audience Went, It Went To Cable
We’ve seen that primetime broadcast network viewership has been on the decline since the early 80’s. But we’ve also seen that primetime TV viewing by household has been relatively flat from the early 90’s. Where did the primetime network audience go?
It went, and continues to go, to cable.
The chart, table and text below have now been updated with the final numbers from the 2007-8 season. Note that the percentage of US TV HHs (rating) viewing during prime-time has risen slowly over time, but the broadcast networks share of viewing has continued to drop for the entire period.
As the prime-time broadcast network audience began declining in the early 1980’s, it shifted to cable networks, and by an ever increasing amount, basic/ad supported cable networks.
Some interesting trends jump out.
Over the past 20+ years, Independent Stations have joined up and become Network Affiliates. Note the ever growing list of networks below. I am looking for good data on the number of Independent stations vs. Network Affiliates over time, but conventional wisdom is that their numbers have shrunk substantially. That’s why I colored both of those series blue. I think they should be considered part of the same viewership trend. Taken together, those two groups have gone from a rating of 54.5 to 27.9, a decline of 49%.
At the same time, Public broadcast primetime viewing has fallen from a HH rating of 2.6 to 1.4, a similar percentage decline of about 54%.
Although I was mostly coherent in the mid-80’s, it was quite a surprise that in 1984-85 audiences were watching more Premium/Pay Cable than Ad/Basic cable.
What is undeniable is that the growth of Ad Supported/Basic cable viewing was not followed by a similar growth in premium/pay cable viewing. Premium/Pay cable has seen its share fall modestly during the period. It’s hard to compare the Premium/Pay Cable numbers before 1999 with those after 1999 because of the definition change (noted below) though.
In fact, today more people watch “other” cable (shopping, music, etc) cable than watch premium/pay cable.
Primetime HH Rating by Season 1984-2008
| Season | Network Affiliates | Independent | Public | Premium/Pay Cable | Ad/Basic Cable | Other Cable |
| 1984-85 | 44.8 | 9.7 | 2.6 | 4.0 | 3.6 | |
| 1985-86 | 45.1 | 10.1 | 2.5 | 3.4 | 3.9 | |
| 1986-87 | 43.3 | 10.5 | 2.7 | 3.3 | 4.7 | |
| 1987-88 | 40.1 | 11.5 | 2.5 | 3.8 | 6.0 | |
| 1988-89 | 38.7 | 11.7 | 2.4 | 3.9 | 7.5 | |
| 1989-90 | 36.5 | 11.9 | 2.2 | 3.6 | 9.0 | |
| 1990-91* | 38.4 | 7.8 | 2.3 | 3.4 | 11.6 | |
| 1991-92 | 41.0 | 5.5 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 12.8 | |
| 1992-93 | 40.4 | 5.7 | 2.2 | 3.0 | 13.6 | |
| 1993-94 | 40.5 | 6.1 | 2.2 | 3.0 | 14.1 | |
| 1994-95 | 37.8 | 6.4 | 2.2 | 3.1 | 15.9 | |
| 1995-96 | 35.7 | 6.6 | 2.1 | 3.3 | 18.0 | |
| 1996-97 | 33.2 | 6.7 | 2.1 | 3.7 | 19.8 | |
| 1997-98 | 31.4 | 6.7 | 2.0 | 3.9 | 22.3 | |
| 1998-99 | 31.3 | 7.2 | 2.0 | 4.2 | 24.1 | |
| 1999-00 | 34.7 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 3.5 | 24.0 | 1.9 |
| 2000-01 | 32.6 | 2.4 | 1.9 | 3.5 | 26.0 | 2.1 |
| 2001-02 | 30.3 | 2.5 | 1.6 | 3.5 | 28.2 | 2.1 |
| 2002-03 | 29.6 | 2.6 | 1.7 | 3.6 | 29.4 | 2.4 |
| 2003-04 | 28.9 | 2.9 | 1.6 | 3.4 | 30.9 | 2.9 |
| 2004-05 | 27.8 | 3.7 | 1.6 | 3.1 | 32.8 | 3.2 |
| 2005-06** | 29.1 | 2.0 | 1.5 | 2.8 | 33.5 | 3.4 |
| 2006-07*** | 28.1 | 1.2 | 1.4 | 2.6 | 33.8 | 3.0 |
| 2007-08*** | 26.9 | 1.0 | 1.2 | 2.6 | 35.1 | 3.0 |
Network Affiliates:
1984-90: ABC, CBS, NBC affiliates
1991-1999: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX Affiliates
1999-December 25, 2005: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, UPN, PAX affiliates
December 26, 2005-January 29 2006: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, UPN, UNI, PAX affiliates
January 30, 2006-February 26, 2006: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, UPN, UNI, TEL, PAX affiliates
February 27, 2006-August 27, 2006: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, UPN, UNI, TEL, TF, PAX affiliates
August 28, 2006 – September 3, 2006 : ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, UPN, UNI, TEL, TF, AZA, PAX affiliates
September 4, 2006 – Present : ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, UPN, UNI, TEL, TF, AZA, PAX, MNT affiliates
Independent:
1984-90: Commercial independent stations including FOX affiliates and TBS
1991-99: Commericial independent stations including WB, UPN affiiliates and superstations except forTBS.
1999-present: Commercial independent stations including Telemundo and Univision affiliates. Excludes TBS
Public: PBS affiliates
Ad Supported/Basic Cable:
1999-present: Viewing to advertiser supported cable networks. Includes TBS and WGN cable.
1984-99: Tuning to basic cable including Pay-Per-View
1991-1999: Tuning to basic cable including TBS and Pay-Per-View.
Premium/Pay Cable:
1999-present: Viewing to premium pay cable services.
1984-99: Cable Subscribers receiving at least one premium channel. This does not include Pay-Per-View.
All Other Cable:
1999-present: tuning to cable networks that are neither ad-supported nor premium pay, includes pay-per-view, interactive channels, home shopping channels, and audio only feeds.
*Effective 1991, FOX and TBS changed from Independents to Network Affiliates and Basic Cable Respectively.
**Combination of Live data and Live+7 data.
***Live+7 data
All years prior to 2005-6 are Live Data.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
You are forgetting the factor of other media. Anymore I would rather watch a movie, play a game, or find something else to do with my time. TV has become such a turnoff because I never know which shows will live on and which ones will be canceled. Why watch something that is going to end? That is really the approach I have been taking with television lately.
It’s amazing how people can just ignore data. It’s not like the chart is rampant speculation. The actual data is clear and it shows that those other choices and people’s emotions around cancelling shows play little to no role whatsoever and that people are watching more TV than ever — just not broadcast.
You know what’s really hard? Ignoring the data while I’m in class. My professor likes to make a big deal out of audience fragmentation due to DVDs and online viewing. I’m enough of a know-it-all in the class without constantly correcting her on this. (She once tried to use the 18-49 numbers for the Emmys this years as the HH numbers. She refused to believe me that she had the wrong numbers.)
Julia, I think all things can be true there (except using 18-49 numbers as HH rting!).
Though the data isn’t wrong, neither necessarily is your teacher in the case of fragmentation. DVD viewing and video game viewing certainly eat into TV time. I don’t have the data to support this, but my speculative guess is the fragmentation occurs mostly with younger people (video games take time!) and is offset by more “older” people watching more TV.
These charts are household viewing. There is no P2+ data to compare with 25 years ago, but if it could be done, and done by age, I think the results would be very interesting.
“it was quite a surprise that in 1984-85 audiences were watching more Premium/Pay Cable than Ad/Basic cable”
It may have been different in, say, the 10 largest metro areas back during the mid 80s, but in the rest of the country, the basic cable networks took longer to get established. However, in many areas, homes could be wired directly for HBO or Cinemax alone far earlier. (And my personal history matches this – I had HBO alone starting in ‘86, and was only able to switch to basic cable when the system was established in my area around ‘88 or ‘89.)
It’s my suspicion that the sudden jump in basic cable viewership between, say, ‘85 and ‘91 is due far less to CNN or MTV airing better programming and more to basic cable being available in more of the country.
Tom, that may be true since my comment was completely based on my own dimming memory. Getting my first apartment after graduating from college in 1982, I also got cable TV for the first time (Annapolis, MD). It had a subset of what we’d consider today to be basic ad supported cable as well as premium options like HBO.
It would be interesting to factor in the # of cable channels per year into this analysis. I’m betting that growth of the cable audience correlates to the number of cable channels added each year.
this trend will continue. Just look at the recent deal to move the BCS games to cable. Unless its a sports event (like the olympics or super bowl) or news event or something the catches the people eye (remember Survivor and Joe Millionaire) then viewership will continue to dwindle.
Is it all that surprising, given the data, that cable is outperforming broadcast nets in critically acclaimed scripted television? As more people are bored with the nets, cable pulls us (mostly with original dramas, and the occasional comedy or movie). Somehow, cable nets have found a way to finance projects that pull in less 2, maybe 3 million viewers most of the time. The 2008 Emmys were an appropriate assesment of the situation – cable cleaned up, save for modestly-rated 30 Rock!
I wouldn’t be surprised if we are now at a point with cross-platform viewing (online, DVr, mobile, etc.) where cable was circa 1987 on your chart. We’re just at the beginning of the fragmentation. If we come back in 20 years and chart the “TV programming” audience shares, will we see online/on-demand/DVR viewing in a graph shaped much like the cable shares on today’s chart?
And Independent television is nearing extinction…poor little indies.
RE paid cable vs ad cable stations—- as someone who remembers the 80s very well— paid cable in the 80s was a huge novelty and a big draw. VCRS and tapes were expensive until the late 80s so if you didn’t want to rent a movie, you watched HBO and Showtime. Even then HBO and SHOWTIME were putting out programming that was years ahead of the networks in content. I remember watching TONS of live comedy specials- completely uncensored with all of the big names in comedy. Uncensored and naughty after dark was big in the Reagan 80s- who remembers Aerobicize on Showtime? Before the internet and easy access to r-rated and more material- cable was where you went to get erotic material without leaving your home. Cheap VCRs and tapes and then DVDs really hit the movie viewing on cable- but the paid stations responded with quality original programming.
Most of the basic cable stations were not producing original programming like we know it today, the focus was on sports and news and repeats. Remember that the 80s launched FOX as a fourth network and then UPN and the WB entered the broadcast market diluting numbers in the 90s and into this decade. The growing variety of original programming on cable means that you can find something any night of the week without having to resort to repeats. And by repeats- the low viewing numbers of Knight Rider show that recylcling tv series is a no go too.
Re the Indies- that is a good point. Here in Phoenix we have a lot of indy stations many servicing the Spanish speaking market, the English stations show a lot of really good reruns and older movies. One local station runs sci-fi all night- Star Trek Voyager, SG-1 and the like and runs Perry Mason, I Love Lucy and other vintage favorites which are hits with the retirees here in the valley of the sun.
When I was a kid in the dark ages of the 70s when cable was how you got broadcast stations to your house when you lived where you couldn’t get a good antenna signal- back then the indies were where you tuned in for after school cartoons, on weekends they showed old black and white movies and classic serials from the 50s an 60s. This is how those of us in our 30s and 40s can say we have seen the same shows that our older friends and parents did.
Today- there are cable stations that show that nostalgic programming – again diluting the market for broadcast tv.
Ah…memory lane. Anyone here remember the cheesy San Jose TV 36 campaign with the buxom blondes in tight low cut t-shirts purring “Tune in to the Perfect 36″ ? Those ran into the 80s. Ah….a simpler time when Nielsens were relevant and captured a true picture of tv viewing.
“These charts are household viewing.”
Exactly – it’s basically “any TV turned on?”, which is not the best metric to measure fragmentation. It probably increases partly because people don’t watch TV together as much as they used to (as in “the whole family”), so the TV stays on longer even though each individual viewer may watch less TV.
Secondly, Nielsen have changed their measurements over the decades, so it’s hard to gauge how much skew there is in the figures. (Didn’t they introduce college dorms into the panel only recently?)
Thirdly, this is primetime data. In my experience (granted, that’s not US-based experience), while DVD viewing does peak in primetime, it’s slightly phase-shifted towards late night (and Sunday afternoons). So it shouldn’t hit prime time TV viewing as hard as all-day viewing.
And finally, there’s the problem of parallel consumption. According to a paper by Nielsen, 31% of internet use, for example, occurs while also watching television. So it’s partly a fragmentation of attention rather than a fragmentation of media selection.
I guess I don’t understand where the numbers are coming from. The numbers are cummulative? So 120 channels on basic cable all average 250,000 viewers that adds up to a total of 30 million viewers?
What about watching network TV on cable?
I don’t doubt it, it just seems counterintuitive that cable viewing would be that high — QVC must be kickin’ butt, huh? LOL
Mel, the numbers above are for the *networks* being viewed not the delivery method. And yes, the cumulative viewership of ad supported cable networks in prime time is approaching 40 million households, while for broadcast networks it’s around 30 million households.
So while we still refer to them as “cable” and “broadcast” networks that is just legacy terminology. In the US somewhat less than 2/3 of the viewers *receive* their TV via a cable, somewhat less than 1/3 receive their TV via satellite and about 10% receive their TV over the air.
And its not QVC that’s “kickin’ butt” but these cable networks:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/12/02/espn-nickelodeon-lead-cable-networks-november-24-30/9056
When you look at the cable-only networks that are doing well in the article linked to above, they’re heavy on the nostalgia, and there are many older series out there that are much better than most of the stuff on broadcast this season, even if you have seen them before.
Just pick a nit, or actually not so much of a nit, *all* cable is paid cable, it’s just you pay twice for the non-premium channels — once with money for the privilege of paying again with eighteen minutes of your life for every 42 minutes of actual entertainment.
In my community, cable is often necessary to receive a signal at all even if you’re getting the most basic package – the equivalent of the broadcast networks plus a local-ish all-news channel and public access. I don’t know why, we’re far from mountainous, but you can spend your life adjusting the rabbit ears, or you can pay for cable. So these households are watching ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CW (sometimes) but they’re doing it via cable, and yes, I get the difference between the network and the delivery method. However, if it costs $14 a month to get five channels and $21 a month to get 40, you’re going to choose 40, and then you will eventually watch them. They know this, which is why you can’t get a cable bundle without MTV. (I actually had a local cable exec admit this to me, only not about MTV. There are cable-networks that get poor ratings on their own, and I don’t mean C-SPAN, I mean commercial endeavors. To survive, they have to be bundled in with the ones that have some legs of their own. Which begs the question: Why do they exist in the first place?)
How about the programming stinks, and is out of synch with the audience it purports to serve? Our family stopped watching network television about 15 years ago because it was evident that the people producing the network television programming were promoting a point of view that had nothing in common with what we believed in. Yes, that bugaboo – liberal, leftist bias in programming, sorry it’s there and we didn’t want it in our home, so we did what the networks say we should do if we are offended by their programming and turned it off! Looks like more and more people are doing the same.