Cable Nets Add More Share in 3rd Quarter
Broadcasters Off To a Poor Start in New Fall Season
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 10/7/2007 8:00:00 PM
Cable is coming out of the third quarter with momentum after soundly trouncing broadcast, which is off to a bad start in the new fall TV season.
In the third quarter, ad-supported cable outperformed broadcast by a 2-to-1 margin, in terms of share of primetime-household viewing. Cable enjoyed a 62.3 share, up 2% from the prior-year quarter, while broadcast averaged a 28.8 share, down 10%, according to a Turner Broadcasting System Inc. analysis of Nielsen Media Research data.
For the recently ended full 2006-2007 TV season, ad-supported cable garnered a 56.8 share of household primetime viewing, a new record, versus 37.8 for broadcast, according to Turner’s analysis.
| Primetime Players | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| The basic-cable networks who finished on top in the third-quarter ratings during primetime (Monday-Sunday, 8-11 p.m.): | |||
| Network | Rank | Rating | Households (In Thousands) |
| Source: Disney/ABC Cable Networks analysis of Nielsen Media Research data |
|||
| Disney | 1 | 2.5 | 2,342 |
| USA | 2 | 2.1 | 1,967 |
| TNT | 3 | 2.0 | 1,890 |
| ESPN | 4 | 1.7 | 1,614 |
| TBS | 5 | 1.3 | 1,265 |
| Lifetime | 5 | 1.3 | 1,218 |
| Fox News | 7 | 1.2 | 1,111 |
| Cartoon | 8 | 1.1 | 1,078 |
| HGTV | 8 | 1.1 | 1,026 |
| Court | 8 | 1.1 | 957 |
| Hallmark | 8 | 1.1 | 956 |
| A&E | 12 | 1.0 | 991 |
| Nick at Nite | 12 | 1.0 | 987 |
| FX | 12 | 1.0 | 971 |
| Spike | 12 | 1.0 | 944 |
| Discovery | 12 | 1.0 | 937 |
| Sci Fi | 17 | 0.9 | 864 |
| MTV | 17 | 0.9 | 844 |
| History | 17 | 0.9 | 834 |
| AMC | 17 | 0.9 | 829 |
| ABC Family | 17 | 0.9 | 817 |
TREND CONTINUES
The broadcast networks’ declines show no sign of abating even in the new TV season, where they have been debuting what is usually considered the best of their programming, their new fall shows.
So far, there are no big hits for broadcast and ratings are down.
“None of the new shows have really broken out,” said Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer for Turner.
Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Michael Nathanson recently released a report about how the broadcasters performed in the first week of the new season.
“Primetime ratings for the Big Four broadcast networks continue to decline at a rapid pace,” Nathanson wrote. “Live plus same day ratings for the Big Four were down collectively, between minus 8% and minus 10%, depending on the demo.”
Cable typically continues its momentum from the summer into the fall, according to Tim Brooks, executive vice president of research for Lifetime Television, which is debuting its Friday-night reality block Oct. 12.
“As usual, when August and July are strong for cable, September tends to be as well, right through the new season,” Brooks said. “So initially, even in September, the cable networks are doing great.”
Broadcast’s diminished showing the third quarter was in stark contrast to cable’s record-breaking performance, which included a particularly sizzling summer for Disney Channel.
Commercial-free Disney, which got a huge boost with its blockbuster High School Musical 2, zoomed to the No. 1 spot in the primetime ratings for cable in the third quarter, amassing the biggest audience in cable history on record for that three-month period, officials said last week.
Disney Channel averaged a record-breaking 3.2 million total viewers, some 19% ahead of No. 2 USA Network, which averaged 2.7 million viewers, according to a Disney ABC Cable Networks analysis of Nielsen data.
Disney Channel’s third-quarter viewership was the second largest for any quarter ever for cable, behind only sister service ESPN, which averaged 3.3 million in the fourth quarter last year. At that time, the sports network soared with its college football coverage and its first time carrying the National Football League’s Monday Night Football franchise.
Disney Channel’s premiere of High School Musical 2 was the No. 1 cable telecast of all-time in total viewers, with 18.6 million, which incorporates live, plus seven-day measurement. In its premiere telecast, the movie delivered 17.2 million watchers.
Disney Channel posted a 2.5 household rating in the third quarter, up 9% from the same quarter last year, while second place USA registered a 2.1 rating in primetime for the quarter, a slight dip of 5%.
TNT was in third place in the primetime horse race, with a 2.0 rating, down 9% from the year-ago period.
The biggest story out of the summer, and the third quarter, was the number of successful scripted series that cable launched, according to both Brooks and Wakshlag.
“The number of successful scripted series this summer on cable was just amazing, and the levels of those series,” Brooks said. “This summer, you had at least 10 series that popped, added on to all the ones [that were] coming back. So it was really a turning-point summer in a lot of ways for original scripted series on cable.”
In its third season, TNT’s The Closer continued in the third quarter as ad-supported cable’s No. 1 series, accounting for six of ad-supported cable’s Top 10 programs in the quarter among households and viewers.
“The Closer, Saving Grace, Monk, Psych, Burn Notice — those are clearly all breakout hits,” Wakshlag said.
For the first time, there were also breakout scripted-comedy hits, he added, citing TBS’s House of Payne and The Bill Engvall Show.
ALL-NEWS TALLY
In terms of all-news networks, Fox News Channel continued its dominance, marking 23 consecutive quarters where it’s been the No. 1 news channel. But both Fox News and CNN saw declines in primetime viewership in the third quarter, while MSNBC continued to make double-digit gains.
Fox News Channel had an 8% ratings decline, to a 1.2 rating, leaving it with 1,386,000 total viewers, compared with 1,475,000 in the third-quarter last year, a 6% drop, according to ABC Disney’s analysis. But Fox’s viewership was still more than CNN and MSNBC combined.
CNN’s primetime ratings dropped 13%, to a 0.7, so it tallied 800,000 viewers compared with 858,000 in the prior-year quarter, a 7% decline.
In contrast, MSNBC saw its primetime ratings increase 25% to a 0.5, or 540,000 viewers compared with 369,000 last year, a 46% increase.
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