One refrain we sometimes see is "of course it won its time period, it had no competition!" We heard such rumblings last night with regard to Glee's season-best performance. Not having as much competition on the broadcast networks certainly can't hurt a show's chances, but the notion of no competition is silly.
Bill is wont to say that on any given night 60% of adults 18-49 are watching cable TV.
It's Not Quite 60%, but close enough for conversational purposes
Through Tuesday night, cable is averaging a 54% share of adults 18-49 in primetime, with the bulk of it coming from advertising-supported basic cable (48%), other cable (2% , including non ad-supported nets like Disney) and premium pay cable services (4%). The 6% or so that’s missing from Bill’s conversational estimate are made up of other broadcast networks (like ION and several Spanish language nets aside from Univision), independent local channels and PBS.
This isn’t a new trend, the flight from broadcast to cable has been afoot for over 25 years.
People sometimes don’t notice the cable competition in the overnight reports because it isn’t included in the overnight reports (we would report it if it were available, but the cable information isn’t available until the afternoon, which makes it impossible to include in the overnight reports even if we had regular access to the data).
But you can approximate this on any given night by adding up the 18-49 share info for primetime that we post for ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC and UNI. If it adds up to 40%, that means 60% were watching something else – with almost all of that being cable.
Sadly, I don’t have any granular historical data because one of the trends that immediately jumps out at me is the half hourly share trends for cable in primetime. For adults 18-49, through December 1:
18-49 primetime average share for all cable S-T-D through December 1:
| Time | Share |
| 8:00 | 50 |
| 8:30 | 50 |
| 9:00 | 51 |
| 9:30 | 51 |
| 10:00 | 59 |
| 10:30 | 61 |
(hat tip to @TVBill for the cool data)
Don't Blame Jay Leno (at least not for all of it)
Obviously the 10pm hour is very interesting, and I’ll see if I can dig up any data for last year. I know the “Jay Leno Killed Broadcast TV” zealots will point and say, “SEE! SEE! HE’S KILLING BROADCAST!” but a lot of things go on at 10pm.
For one, networks like FOX and smaller networks like CW don’t even program there. That cable deliberately programs a lot of its best content at 10pm is not a new trend due to Jay Leno. FX, USA and Bravo have traditionally put some of their best shows on at 10pm. Undeniably, more people are watching cable at 10pm, but there are causes beyond Jay Leno.
That is not to say that Leno’s presence Monday-Friday hasn’t made the numbers more pronounced, but I’m guessing if I can dig up the S-T-D numbers from last season, the half hourly trends will look similar, with more share from 10-11p.
“Bill is wont to say?”
Don’t forget AMC, HBO and Showtime.
@tk,
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wont
though not all networks are in the graphic I used, they are all represented in the numbers I used.
I think this discussion was sparked from today’s ratings thread (when people were making comments about how Glee did/didn’t go up as much because of the “lack” of competition)
And while I agree that cable is a significant force in the TV world, it seems that BROADCAST ratings fluctuate considerably depending on the competition amongst BROADCASTERS.
In other words, when do we see a measurable impact on BROADCAST primetime ratings when there’s stronger than normal cable competition (say a football game on ESPN or something)? Apart from a few instances, the 60% audience is split in so many different ways that we rarely see broadcast ratings being affected – at least an effect that was noteworthy.
However, the same can’t be said for broadcast vs. broadcast – putting up 4 repeats against Glee gave Glee a solid bump up in the ratings. Putting all repeats on cable at 9pm against Glee probably wouldn’t have had the same effect.
@Anonymous,
I think this discussion was sparked from today’s ratings thread (when people were making comments about how Glee did/didn’t go up as much because of the “lack” of competition)
Since Robert specifically mentioned that in the first paragraph, I suspect you may be right.
Yeah, what Holly said.
You are right that cable programming at 10 pm is not a new trend, but when cable stations are putting much of their best stuff on at ten pm, it does sure give the lie to the silly argument that people are not watching at 10 anymore.
People are just not watching Broadcast television at 10 pm anymore.
Old logo….should be Syfy.
I saw that and thought “eh, nobody will notice!”
Again I scream that there is TO MANY CHANNELS if we could have the BIG 3 (ABC CBS FOX) the little 3 (NBC CW ION) Spanish networks and about 30 cable networks thats it. TV would be much better in comparison to today.
As always, I feel it is important to point out that while ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW and UNI may only average a 40% share of the A18-49 audience it takes dozens upon dozens of cable channels to reach the other 60%.
Interesting….
Here is another article on comcast cable and Hulu
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10408738-261.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
I would like to see how this compares to usage in other nations.
Doghouse I suspect that’s part of the problem with the ‘cable is the competition’ mantra and why it never really occurs to people, with so many channels its just impossible to pinpoint competition for the broadcast shows. Sure if they’re up against a big cable hit like Burn Notice or The Closer then its easy to make the comparison point but when its a series of not especially popular or dare I say obscure shows it becomes less easy to do, at least for casual observers. The general lack of data doesn’t help matters either.
While we are on the topic (sorta), how has the “Households Using Television” (HUT) number changed over the years?
I ask because I am curious if the rise of the internet has sliced into TV viewing in toto. And the HUT number is seldom reported.
I suppose the same thing could be measured by looking at cumulative general ratings (% of population, not % of HUT, right?) declines as well.
cas127, I’m not sure if we have HUT levels over time somewhere, but overall TV viewing continues to slowly increase.
As much as new technologies have taken up people’s time, they haven’t crowded out TV viewing.