
CABLETELEVISION ADVERTISING BUREAU
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Primetime:
Cable’s viewership gains momentum as household delivery persists to out-perform last year’s level significantly. In the third week of 03-04 Broadcast Season, Ad Supported Cable delivered 30.9 million homes – up 2.7 million from year ago; its rating climbed 2.0 points to a 28.5 HH rating; and its share jumped a healthy 3.2 household points to a 46.5 share. Conversely to Cable’s performance, Broadcast continued to experience erosion thanks to six out of the total seven nets as all experienced significant share losses this week v. year ago. Fox was the lone gainer thanks to the baseball playoffs – up 24%.

As the new 03-04 season continues to unfold - Cable manages to capture 47% of total TV viewing. In fact, the spread between Cable and Broadcast has practically halved from 8.9 share points last year to 3.9 points this week. In addition, Cable has experienced healthy gains across all of its audience measurements from year ago while Broadcast continues to erode.
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Total Day:
Ad Supported Cable delivered 17.5 million homes in the 3rd week of the 03/04 Season, representing an increase of 1.3 million viewers from last year on a Total Day basis. Cable’s household ratings increased 0.9 points from a year ago to 16.1 and the share increased by 2.2 points to end at 49.1. Cable’s share was once again greater than that of the Broadcast Networks (4 Net.), with the difference being a solid 8.8 points. The broadcast networks were up in impressions, held constant in ratings but declined in share.
Cable, to date, in the fourth quarter, has a strong lead over the broadcast networks. It ended with a 49.6 share, 9.9 points above Broadcast’s level. Ratings were up 1.1 points to finish at 16.3, and share increased 2.3 points from last year. The Broadcast Networks have experienced a slight increase in viewership and ratings, while share has declined.
For this season, cable rose to 17.8 million homes, up 1.6 million homes from last year. Cable’s ratings increased by 1.2 points to end at 16.4 and its share rose to 49.8, an increase of 2.4 points from last year. The broadcast networks experienced an increase in impressions, ratings held constant and share declined by 1.0 point to end at 39.4.
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Source: Nielsen Galaxy.
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Content © 2004 by Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (www.onetvworld.org). Reprinted with Permission.