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Week 26 of the 2002/03 Season (3/17-3/23/03)

Primetime:

Ad Supported Cable reached its highest audience measurements to date this season mainly due to the war coverage by the cable news networks. Cable delivered 35.5 million homes, earned a 33.3 household rating, and garnered a 51.7 share. While its difficult to make an apples to apples comparison, compared to year ago, Cable’s audience grew 6.3 million homes and its share jumped 6.1 points. Conversely, Broadcast’s 4-net affiliate based collective share declined 3.2 points to a 43.7. Broadcast’s decline was primarily driven by ABC whose share fell 30% from year ago.

To date this season, Cable is experiencing healthy gains delivering 30.6 million homes, garnering a 28.7 HH rating, and earning a 46.6 share. Broadcast on the other hand is down across all audience measures. The seven networks have lost 996,000 viewers so far and are experiencing rating and share losses compared to last year’s levels. NBC is the clear driver of the share loss experienced by the seven nets partly due to telecast’s of the Olympics last year.

Cable is performing great this First Quarter 2003 as Cable’s delivery is up 2.4 million homes vs year ago. Cable’s HH rating and share are also up considerably, up 1.9 and 2.6 points, respectively. Conversely, Broadcast ratings are eroding as audience measures are down significantly vs year ago. Broadcast’s loss is fueled by NBC as the network aired the Winter Olympics same period a year ago.

Download Primetime Spreadsheet

Total Day:

Ad Supported Cable rose to 21.2 million homes this week, an increase of 4.7 million viewers from last year on a Total Day basis. Cable’s ratings increased to a 19.8, up 4.2 points from last year and the share increased 6.9 points to finish at 54.5. Cable’s share was once again greater than that of the Broadcast Networks (4 Net.), with the difference being 17.1 points. It should be noted that cable’s large gains this week in comparison to last year can be partly attributed to viewers tuning in to the cable news networks (i.e. CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC) for continued updates on the war in Iraq.

Cable, to date, in the first quarter, ended with a 50.3 share, 11.3 points above Broadcast’s level. Cable ratings were up 1.6 points to finish at 17.4, and its share increased 3.0 points from last year. The Broadcast Networks have experienced a decline in viewership.

For this season, cable rose to 17.8 million homes, up 1.3 million homes from last year. Cable’s rating increased by 1.0 point to end at 16.7 and its share increased to finish at 49.4, an increase of 2.0 points from last year. The broadcast networks continued to experience rating decreases from last year. Ratings were down 0.3 to end at 13.3 and share was down 1.9 points to 39.3.

Download Total Day Spreadsheet

Source: Nielsen Galaxy.