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Week 2 of the 2002/2003 Season (9/30-10/6/02)

Primetime:

In its second week of the 2002/03 Broadcast Season, Cable delivered 28.6 million homes and earned a 44.4 HH share, down slightly from year ago. Cable’s decline this week can be attributed to the heightened tune-in coverage of the September 11th attack on the cable news networks last year. Also Fox’s airings of the Major League Baseball playoffs this week, which did not air same period a year ago, contributed to cable’s decline as well. Broadcast experienced viewership gains this week, delivering 35.0 million homes, up 3.0 million from year ago. Broadcast’s viewership gains were due to CBS’s (+18.7%), Fox’s (+27.7%), and WB’s (+21.3%) strong performances this week.

To date this season, Cable is delivering 28.7 million homes, garnering a 26.9 HH rating, and earning a 44.5 share in spite of Broadcast’s premiere programming. Broadcast in the other hand, is up 2.3 share points from year ago, earning a 53.5 share for the first two weeks. Broadcast’s viewership is up 1.1 million homes to 34.5 million and the rating has remained on par. The 62 Broadcast (4-net) premiere's this season which averaged an 8.4 HH Rating were basically on par with the 68 premiere's last season which averaged an 8.3 HH rating.

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Total Day:

Ad Supported Cable rose to 16.2 million homes this week, a slight decrease of 6,000 viewers from last year on a Total Day basis. Cable’s ratings dropped by 0.2 to finish at 15.2, and the share increased 0.1 points to finish at 47.6. Cable’s share was once again greater than that of the Broadcast Networks (4 Net.), with the difference being 7.7 points. It should be noted that broadcast’s lead in viewership and ratings is not the norm. This unusual situation can be partly attributed to the fact that there was no MLB playoff coverage on the broadcast networks last year because of 9/11 pushing it forward while this year the playoffs are taking place on time.

For this season, cable rose to 16.2 million homes, up 74,000 homes from last year. Cable’s rating decreased by 0.1 points to end at 15.2 and its share rose to finish at 47.7, an increase of 0.4 points from last year. The broadcast networks continued to experience rating decreases from last year. Ratings were down 0.4 to end at 12.8 and share was down 0.6 points to 40.2.

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Source: Nielsen Galaxy.