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Place Your Bets! The 04/05 Broadcast Season Has Begun and Cable Is In The Lead

The race is on with the commencement of the 04/05 Broadcast Season and Ad Supported Cable is in the driver’s seat with a 31.4 household rating, up 8.3% from last year. For the first time ever, Cable managed to surpass the Broadcast seven nets household rating during a premiere week with a 3.2 rating spread. Year after year, Cable continues to experience considerable household rating gains while Broadcast just keeps on eroding as the seven nets household rating fell 7.5% to a record low 28.2. With six out of the seven nets down this week, NBC was the main driver with a 15% HH rating decline.

In its first week of the 04/05 Broadcast Season, Ad-Supported Cable delivered 34.4 million homes, up 3.0 million from year ago. As well as Cable’s household share growing 4.5 points from year ago Cable managed to capture more than half (52%) of total TV viewing during one of Broadcasts’ strongest programming weeks. As Cable experienced gains across the board, Broadcast lost ground as household viewership fell 2.2 million viewers – a yearly trend.

With Broadcast waiting anxiously in the side lines – the fifty-four premieres this week under-performed last year’s level (comprised of sixty premieres) by a considerable 15%. While it’s too premature to tell which show is going to make it - ABC, NBC and UPN’s premieres started off on the wrong foot as they under-performed last year significantly. Even though NBC experienced the greatest decline (-11%) v. year ago, ABC is in trouble with maintaining its rating levels as 75% of its schedule was telecasted this past week.

CBS’s CSI ranked first place during 04/05 Broadcast Season’s premiere week with an 18.5 HH rating followed closely by CSI: Miami. In fact, CBS started the new season on the right foot by placing six of the total Top 10 Programs. New comers to list include: Without a Trace, CSI: NY, and ABC’s Lost.

Viewers continued to flock to cable in droves as each night of the week sustained considerable gains with Friday (+16.4%) and Sunday (+11.7%) posting the largest household rating increases. Despite Broadcast telecasting its strongest programming this week, six out of the total seven nights in Primetime experienced household rating declines with Saturday (-20.6%) and Friday (-14.4%) hit the hardest. CBS’s and ABC’s weak programming were the main drivers of the vast losses experienced on both Friday and Saturday nights. On the flip side, Wednesday household rating grew 6.4% thanks to mainly to CBS’s CSI: NY and WB’s Smallville.

Beware Broadcast! Cable is taking the lead by outperforming the seven nets in four out of the total seven nights during Primetime.

As Ad-Supported Cable and Broadcast continue on their race, Cable will continue to shatter records as it has already: outperforming Broadcast for the first time during a premiere week. Week after week, year after year, Cable will continue to set the standard of achievement across the board. Cable is a sure bet.

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