-
Over 1,800 Original Programs a Week Boosts Cable to Win Every Night
of the Week -
- Cable Ratings
Grew Among Advertising’s Most Important Demographic Groups -
New York, NY
– February 2, 2009 – The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau
(CAB) released its analysis of season-to-date Nielsen national television
audience data revealing record-high primetime audience ratings for ad-supported
Cable programming in the first eighteen weeks of the current television
season.
In addition to fueling year-over-year
growth of the total TV audience, ad-supported Cable substantially widened
its average nightly total ratings advantage over Broadcast primetime
programming.
The CAB’s ratings analysis, which
is an on-going core element in their presentations to US advertisers
and media agencies, details several historical peaks in ad-supported
Cable’s primeime leadership including:
- Ad-Supported Cable’s
average nightly total ratings edge of 10.9 rating points better than
Broadcast for the current season actually extends the duration of Cable’s
10-ratings-points-or-better nightly advantage over Broadcast TV to a
period spanning the last 65 weeks (see following chart):
Viewed
in the context of the previous TV season, which included an early season
WGA strike, it is clear that
while
ad-supported Cable’s nightly ratings gains were accelerated during
the strike period, the widened gap
advantage
vs. broadcast has remained constant over the eleven months that followed
the strike.
- Cable’s rating’s growth
in the current season covers the gamut of advertiser’s highly desired
target audiences, including the major trading demographic groups of
18-to-49 and 25-to-54 years old adults (see below chart):
- While the current TV season’s
ratings for ad-supported Cable grew every
night of the week, the most substantial shifts of audience from the
seven Broadcast networks to ad-supported Cable networks occurred on
the retail-critical nights of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (see following
chart):
On
a total-day basis the audience gains for ad-supported Cable more than
offset the losses of Broadcast as
total
TVusage figures (HUTS, etc.) rose in first eighteen weeks of the current
TV season versus the same
- The number of original
programs that aired on ad-supported Cable in any given week of
4Q 2008 was also at an all-time high of 1,837 original Cable programs,
which now accounts for two-thirds of all ad-supported Cable programming
(see 2 following charts):
Commenting on the findings in this
most recent TV audience analysis, CAB President and CEO Sean Cunningham
said: “The pace of viewer’s flight to Cable has surged dramatically
over the past year. Advertiser’s in search of the right kind of value
to achieve their goals in a tough environment will ever-increasingly
depend on their own flight to more Cable brands and programming.”
About the CAB
Founded in 1980, the
Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (www.thecab.tv) is a television advertising
advocacy group dedicated to providing advertisers and their agencies
with the most current, complete and actionable media insights at the
national, DMA and local levels.
# # #
CAB Media Contact
Sean Cunningham -- 212-508-1223/914-420-9323
mobile
seanc@cabletvadbureau.com
