We regularly list the top rated broadcast prime-time TV shows each week for adults 18-49, the age group that most closely correlates to advertising revenue potential. But that list measures only one component of the advertising revenue picture for a show, the other is how many minutes the show’s on the air.
To get an idea of which broadcast prime-time shows likely brought in the most advertising revenue for the 2008-9 broadcast season, which ended May 20, I multiplied the season average adults 18-49 viewership by the number of minutes the show aired during the season. I realize that’s a very rough measure of the likely advertising revenue that doesn’t take into account many factors, but it’s interesting to look at the results.
By that measure, NBC Sunday Night Football and American Idol are the biggest advertising revenue generators in broadcast prime-time. But that’s not surprising, they’re also the top rated shows for adults 18-49.
Several shows that bubble up on this list, but not on the typical adults 18-49 lists because of their long running times are Biggest Loser and ABC’s Saturday Night Football.
Another surprise was Univision’s Sabado Gigante appearing on the list because of its huge airtime. Based on what we know about relative advertising rates for Spanish language programming (they’re lower) that’s not likely an apples to apples comparison, but it is still interesting.
Of course, there are lots of limitations looking at things this way including that it doesn’t indicate profitability and short shows, even with high ratings, wouldn’t make this list, and looking at numbers on a “show” basis while interesting is likely not as ultimately useful as looking at revenue on a per prime-time hour basis.
| Rank | Program | Net | Avg. Adults 18-49 (LIVE+SD) (000) | Season Airtime (Minutes) | Relative Advertising Revenue |
| 1 | NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL | NBC | 8,533 | 2,775 | 1.00 |
| 2 | AMERICAN IDOL-WED | FOX | 12,194 | 1,458 | 0.75 |
| 3 | AMERICAN IDOL-TUE | FOX | 12,042 | 1,385 | 0.70 |
| 4 | DANCING WITH THE STARS | ABC | 6,135 | 2,167 | 0.56 |
| 4 | GREY’S ANATOMY | ABC | 6,277 | 1,965 | 0.52 |
| 6 | BIGGEST LOSER 7 | NBC | 5,020 | 2,280 | 0.48 |
| 7 | HOUSE | FOX | 6,139 | 1,828 | 0.47 |
| 8 | DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES | ABC | 6,799 | 1,523 | 0.44 |
| 9 | CSI | CBS | 5,999 | 1,651 | 0.42 |
| 10 | CSI: MIAMI | CBS | 4,835 | 1,980 | 0.40 |
| 11 | SAT NIGHT FOOTBALL | ABC | 3,572 | 2,470 | 0.37 |
| 12 | NCIS | CBS | 4,520 | 1,920 | 0.37 |
| 13 | CRIMINAL MINDS | CBS | 4,511 | 1,800 | 0.34 |
| 14 | THE MENTALIST | CBS | 4,630 | 1,689 | 0.33 |
| 15 | EXTREME MAKEOVER:HOME EDITION | ABC | 4,322 | 1,800 | 0.33 |
| 16 | HEROES | NBC | 4,722 | 1,567 | 0.31 |
| 17 | FRINGE | FOX | 4,724 | 1,559 | 0.31 |
| 18 | SABADO GIGANTE SAT | UNI | 1,189 | 6,123 | 0.31 |
| 19 | CSI: NY | CBS | 4,243 | 1,680 | 0.30 |
| 20 | LAW AND ORDER:SVU | NBC | 4,369 | 1,620 | 0.30 |
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Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
The Relative Advertising Index is the takes the season average adults 18-49 viewership multiplied by the total duration in minutes of the show divided by the top show’s (Sunday Night Football) result.
Interesting post. I might also multiply the total minutes by the total transmissions during the season. That would raise Sabado Gigante’s standing in the list, since it runs every single week, while lowering the totals for Saturday and Sunday Night Football which ran for about 20 games each?…
Alejandro, I likely wasn’t clear in the copy, but you can see in the table that the total minutes during the season were used in the calculations.
That odd UNI network is on the list and CW is not, haha
I think what Alejandro was suggesting was that it would be interesting to see what it looked like not only if you calculated as a function of minutes, but also weighted those minutes based on the number of airings.
Interesting, an 18-49 list without The Office and Lost.
College football doesn’t have a good 18-49 demo? Or is that just because its on Saturday night??
ABC’s Saturday Night College Football has a slightly above average (for ABC) adults 18-49 demo average viewership, but the reason it makes this list is because its run time of nearly 2,500 minutes (41+ hours) is large compared with most other shows.
I think most sporting events will be on the top of the list usually because they are usually on longer, plus with the frequent timeouts and quarter breaks you’ll get lots of airtime for ads.
I personally do not know why such shows American Idol and Dancing With The Stars could be on the high on the list, I sometimes see companies repeat their ads on the same commercial break of such shows (e.g. Coca-Cola showed 4 ads one time in 1 commercial break), them having high ratings just doesn’t cut it for me, if time length is another factor in the key here.
I think next season we would see CBS dominate the list entirely, see no NBC but football, and see 2 ABC shows, 3 FOX shows, and 3 CW shows.
dont forget that sabado gigante also has ADS presented by the hosts throughout the entire program !! along with regular 30 second ads !!
The top show for each network is reality.
Now, factor in licensing fees and production budgets…
j, not so for CBS, but for the others, good point.
Which TV shows make the most money is a different post. that’s why this post was titled “Which TV Shows Generate the Most Advertising Revenue”!
hessian, impossible for us to do. While relative revenue is pretty easy to estimate from ratings, costs are finger in the wind stuff for anyone with just public information.
Interesting that there are no comedies-30 minute shows on the list. I was expecting to see Two and a Half Men and the Office on this list.
Kathy, as I noted in the post, because of the method (ratings x total airtime), it’s pretty much impossible for a 30 minute show to make this list. That’s a limitation of such a “show” based look. Two highly rated 30 minute shows together make as much revenue as a similar 60 minute show, but not individually.
I notice that Knight Rider is not on that list. Remember that Ford sponsored the heck out of the backdoor pilot and the series.
So from these numbers shown, I presume that since the ad revenue made from that deal was not very high, that led to NBC not renewing for season two.
What a shame.
Visit knightrideronline.com
TMN (Too many numbers *g*)
Happy for Sabado Gigante!
No 24 huh?
Nice to see no Major League Baseball, I think it’s dying slowly.
This may be as good or better an indicator of chances for renewal than the Renew/Cancel index; though of course it is already a strong correlate. Costs of the shows and who bhears the brunt of them would seem to be thwe terra incognito only the privleged can get to. This kind of info is good for the summer doldrums.
ah, what? u r assuming every show get the *same* ad rate for air time??? also, each show has different levels of ad time vs programming time.
drac, it’s very likely that the 18-49 rating for each show tracks most of the differences in ad rates. As for different commercial loads, you’re right, this doesn’t take that into account. That’s data that’s not easily (if at all) publicly available.
George, this chart includes national broadcast prime-time programming only, since only football is in that category on a regular basis other sports would not appear. That’s not to say they don’t make plenty of money on local channels or cable networks.
I would love to hear the case that Major League Baseball is dying slowly.
If you factor in regional cable viewing, more people watch baseball now than at any time in history. It’s not even close. MLB sets a new attendance record most years. Franchise values go up every year.
Forbes already figured this up for the top 10. I recall that American Idol and 24 were #1 and #2 respectively on the list.
Bill, where does Lost fall in that list? Thanks
Louisa, 24 is just behind Law & Order:SVU at #21. 18-49 avg. of 4.812 million, airtime of 1,440 minutes, Index of 0.29.
Chief, here’s a link to that Forbes article, your memory was correct, they had Idol #1 and 24 #2. Their methods were different, and they were estimating advertising revenue per half hour, which is different than per show which is what I tried to do. If you take into account the different methods and objectives, the lists match up pretty well.
It’s worth reading for those interested.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/08/television-advertising-american-idol-business-media-tv-moneymakers.html