Demos: The World Cup Gives FOX A Boost, CBS Surpasses The Competition
Broadcast: As we push further into the summer season the battle for viewership rages on amongst Broadcast’s biggest networks. The data collected from July shows a slight decline in the general viewership of the major networks, proving that the competition is even steeper than before. ABC, CBS, and NBC all saw lower average viewership during their prime time programming compared to what they experienced in June. This fluctuating viewership also led to the rise of a new champion, with CBS managing to have the highest average viewership. Pulling in an average of 2.473 million daily viewers, CBS dethroned last month’s leader, ABC. NBC managed to secure 2nd place with 2.256 million average viewers, narrowly beating ABC who had 2.221 million average viewers. FOX was unable to catch up with its rivals despite their dips, but it did manage to outperform its own viewership from last month, rising to 1.679 million average viewers. The CW is yet another network that witnessed a decline in viewership, dropping to an average of 283,000 viewers.
CBS’s success July can be attributed to the consistency of its viewership. Throughout the month it experienced the least fluctuations, dipping as low as 1.709 million viewers and rising to a high of 3.184 million viewers. NBC was able to outperform ABC this month due to a few key days that saw a dramatic increase in viewers, with two separate days exceeding 4 million viewers. ABC never managed to maintain the highs of its competitors, only to exceeding 3 million viewers twice. ABC also experienced notable dips in viewership with one day dropping as low as 860,000 viewers. FOX was able to surpass its viewership from last month due to a few days where viewership reached impressive heights. The strongest day FOX saw brought in a total of 4.625 million viewers, more than any single day from ABC, CBS, or NBC. FOX owes its strongest days to the ongoing Women’s World Cup that has been airing on the network. Inversely, FOX dropped to 393,000 on its weakest day. Despite The CW underperforming when compared to last month, the data conveys a trend of rising viewership throughout the month, suggesting next month may be more successful.
Cable: Unlike the many Broadcast networks that saw a general decline in viewership, several Cable networks experienced an increase in average viewership. In general, one can expect individual Cable networks to have lower average viewership than Broadcast networks; this is due to the paid nature of the model as well as the variety of channels available. BET was among the networks that experienced this rise in viewership, bringing in an average of 374,000 daily viewers. Its sister station, BET Her, brought in an average of 37,500 viewers. Cleo TV saw a notable increase in viewership as well, rising to an average of 15,750 viewers. Comedy TV brought in a daily average of 6,000 viewers and Justice Central averaged 11,000 daily viewers. Magnolia Network jumped up to 190,000 average viewers and OWN rose up to 137,000 viewers. Finally, The Weather Channel averaged about 99,000 daily viewers.
Spanish Language: There are several stations on the air that cater to the Spanish speaking audiences of America. At the moment one of the most popular Spanish language networks is Univision which brought in an average of 1.387 million daily viewers. Telemundo brought in around 679,000 average daily viewers. UniMas actually had fewer viewers this month, dropping to an average of 255,000. Not far behind was TUDN with an average viewership of 231,000. Smaller networks like BeIN Sports Espanol, Gala Novelas, and Universo saw an average daily viewership of 3,250, 9,250, and 36,500 respectively.
Streaming Viewership in %
Streaming: The Nielsen data collected for the month of June proves that streaming platforms continue to threaten the success of the traditional models like Broadcast and Cable. Streaming accounted for 37.7% of total viewership whereas Broadcast and Cable only accounted for 20.8% and 30.6% of viewers respectively. This demonstrates both an increase for Streaming and a decrease for Broadcast and Cable when compared to the previous month’s data. Of the streamers, YouTube performed the strongest, accounting for 23.3% of total streaming viewership. Not far behind was Netflix which accounted for 21.8% of streaming viewership. Next was Hulu with 9.3% and then Prime Video with 8.5%. Disney+ saw 5.3% of the total streaming views. In the first full month with its rebranded identity, Max saw 3.7% of streaming views, which is actually higher than HBO Max’s final month in May. Tubi matched Max’s 3.7% despite being a free service. Not far behind was Peacock which accounted for 3.2% of streaming views. Behind that was Paramount+ and Roku each pulling 2.7% of the streaming views. Lastly the free service Pluto accounted for 2.4% of the views. The remaining 13.4% of streaming views went to other streaming services, including any high-bandwidth video streaming on television and any apps designed to deliver live broadcast and cable programming.