Demos: CBS Wins The Summer While Streaming Continues To Siphon Broadcast's Viewership
Broadcast: With the Fall season quickly approaching, the fight for Summer viewership is nearing its end. The audience numbers collected for August shows that CBS has once again outperformed the competition, securing the title of most viewed Broadcast network of the Summer. ABC may have started off the Summer on top but its viewership has continued to dwindle since June. NBC put up an impressive fight, experiencing a notable increase in viewership since July, bringing it up to 2.368 million average viewers, but this ultimately was not enough to outperform CBS which had 2.440 million average daily viewers. ABC saw its lowest viewership yet, bringing in an average of only 2.047 million viewers, down from 3.328 million viewers back in June. Without the World Cup to boost its numbers, FOX’s viewership dropped to 1.342 million average viewers. The CW held steady, averaging 286 million viewers, which is nearly identical to what it experienced in July.
CBS had the most consistent viewership in August, never dropping below 1.000 million viewers, but never rising above 4.000 million viewers. NBC had some of the strongest individual days, exceeding 4.000 million viewers on two separate occasions, while ABC’s viewership dropped below 1.000 million viewers on two separate occasions. Although CBS finished on top when compared to its fellow broadcast networks, broadcast in general experienced an overall decline in the last few months. It can be normal for viewership to decline in the summer months as warm weather and clear skies encourage more people to venture out into the world, taking vacations and going on trips. However, non-linear viewership consistent incline during this period demonstrates that streaming services continue to be a real threat in the fight for viewership.
Cable: The month of August saw little fluctuation in the viewership for the cable networks covered in last month’s article. There are many options available for viewers in the landscape of cable television. The channels discussed here are either geared towards POC audiences or are operated by companies with POC ownership. BET averaged 346,000 viewers while BET Her averaged 42,000 viewers. Cleo TV brought in 15,000 average daily viewers while Comedy.TV and Justice Central had 7,000 and 11,000 average viewers respectively. Magnolia Network averaged 179,000 viewers while OWN averaged 129,000 viewers. The only network to see a notable fluctuation since last month was The Weather Channel which rose to 111,000 average viewers. This increase is possibly due to this month’s significant weather phenomena, such as Hurricane Hillary passing through Southern California or the wildfires that continue to rage in Hawaii.
Spanish Language: The leading networks for Spanish language content continued to hold mostly steady viewership since last month. Univision remained the most popular with only a slight dip in viewership, dropping down from 1.387 million to 1.107 million average viewers. Telemundo brought in 669,000 average daily viewers while UniMas brought in 266,000 average daily viewers. TUDN experienced the greatest decline in viewership, falling to 93,000 average daily viewers. Universo was not too far behind with 63,000 average daily viewers, nearly double the viewership it experienced in July. Gala Novelas and Bein Sports Espanol brought in average daily viewership of 14,000 and 3,000 respectively.
Streaming Viewership in %
Streaming: Nielsen’s streaming viewership data for the month of July shows that the total viewership for non-linear television only continues to grow. In July, 38.7% of total television viewership was on non-linear services, up from 37.7% in June. Of these services, YouTube continues to be the most watched, bringing in 23.8% of total streaming viewership. Netflix was close behind with 22% of the views, retaining its second-place status. Hulu and Prime Video accounted for 9.3% and 8.8% of streaming views respectively, followed by Disney+ with 5.2%. Max and Tubi once again experienced nearly identical viewership, each accounting for 3.6% of streaming views. Peacock and Roku each accounted for 2.8% of streaming views, while Paramount+ fell behind with only 2.6%. Lastly was Pluto with 2.3% of viewership. The remaining 13.2% of streaming views went to other streaming services, including high-bandwidth video streaming on television and apps designed to deliver live broadcast and cable programming.