Where You Are: Home > CAB Research > '02/03 Weekly Audience Measures

Week 32 of the 2002/03 Season (4/28-5/4/03)

Primetime:

Cable continued to outperform Broadcast for the ninth consecutive week, delivering a 47.9 share. During the one of Broadcast’s strongest programming weeks, Cable managed to surpass Broadcast’s delivery by 738,000 homes. Cable also experienced healthy year to year gains as delivery grew 2.1 million more homes while Broadcast’s fell 1.9 million homes. Cable’s share performed 2.7 points above last year’s level whereas Broadcast’s declined almost four points to a 46.6. Broadcast’s decline was driven mainly by NBC who experienced a 21% decline.

In Second Quarter 2003 to date, Cable is outperforming Broadcast’s seven collective household share level by an impressive 13.6 points. Cable’s household delivery is 8.7 million above Broadcast’s and its household rating is surpassing Broadcast’s by 8.1 points. Compared to year ago, Cable is up a healthy 2.5 share points while Broadcast continues to erode. Six out of the total seven networks are down in household share with Fox being the only sole gainer this Quarter thanks to telecasts of “American Idol”.

To date this season, Cable is experiencing healthy gains vs year ago delivering 31.1 million homes, garnering a 29.2 HH rating, and earning a 47.5 share. Broadcast on the other hand is down across all audience measures. The seven networks have lost 892,000 viewers so far and are experiencing significant rating and share losses compared to last year’s levels. While three out of the seven nets are down in share, NBC is the clear driver of the share loss partly due to telecast’s of the Olympics last year.

Download Primetime Spreadsheet

Total Day:

Ad Supported Cable rose to 17.4 million homes this week, an increase of 1.3 million viewers from last year on a Total Day basis. Cable’s ratings increased to a 16.3, up 1.1 points from last year and the share increased 2.1 points to finish at 51.0. Cable’s share was once again greater than that of the Broadcast Networks (4 Net.), with the difference being 13.7 points. It should be noted that although the cable news networks’ (i.e. CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC) coverage on the aftermath of the war in Iraq has decreased in comparison to recent weeks, it can be partly attributed to cable’s strong lead over broadcast. The broadcast networks were up slightly in viewership, but were down in ratings and share compared to last year.

Cable, to date, in the second quarter, has a commanding lead over the broadcast networks. It ended with a 53.9 share, 18.2 points above Broadcast’s level. Ratings were up 2.1 points to finish at 17.9, and share increased 3.8 points from last year. The Broadcast Networks have experienced a slight increase in viewership, ratings have remained constant and share has declined in comparison to last year.

For this season, cable rose to 18.1 million homes, up 1.5 million homes from last year. Cable’s ratings increased by 1.3 points to end at 17.0 and its share rose to 50.3, an increase of 2.4 points from last year. The broadcast networks continued to experience declines from last year. It sustained losses across the board as impressions fell by 150,000 homes, ratings declined by 0.3 to end at 13.0 and share decreased by 2.0 points to end at 38.6.

Download Total Day Spreadsheet

Source: Nielsen Galaxy.