Originally posted by dumont:
FOX Steamroller Continues to Flatten Rivals After 22 Days of the 2008 February Sweep: After 22 days of the February Sweep, the FOX steamroller continues to flatten the competition, and FOX holds an unprecedented first place across all key measures. The mammoth FOX lead over its rivals has been fueled by the enormous, record-breaking Super Bowl numbers, the powerhouse American Idol numbers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (and last night too), and reliable ratings strength on every other night.
In the young audience A18-49 demo that advertisers crave for ad placement, FOX has the most nightly wins, having beaten the other networks on 14 out of 22 nights so far (one tie), followed by NBC with five nightly wins (one NBC win was a tie with FOX).
After 22 days, NBC holds second place in the A18-49 demo with a .14 advantage over third place ABC. In the households and viewership measures, CBS continues to hold on to second place.
After 22 days, the two News Corporation networks FOX and MyNetworkTV are both showing solid double-digit improvement over their numbers from last year. All the remaining networks are showing significant double-digit year-over-year declines, with NBC showing the least year-over-year slippage (-11% in demo, -10% in households, and -8% in viewers) while CBS, who were last year's Super Bowl broadcaster, is faring worst (-57% in demo, -46% in households, -51% in viewers) due to its large proportion of encore programming as a result of the writers strike.
After 22 days, the six networks are showing smaller-than-expected (given the strike and increased use of DVR's) year-over-year erosion: the young adult demo down by -13%, households are down by -12% on a year-over-year basis, while viewership is down by -10% year-over-year.
nights nights
demo web demo demo % won won
Rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 7.39 4.97 49% 14 10
2 NBC 2.57 2.89 -11% 5
3 ABC 2.45 3.60 -32% 3 5
4 CBS 2.30 5.41 -57% 1 7
5 CW 0.90 1.30 -31%
6 MNT 0.47 0.27 78%
total 16.08 18.43 -13% 23 22
nights nights
HH web HH HH HH won won
rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 10.2 7.2 42% 12 7
2 CBS 5.4 9.9 -46% 4 12
3 NBC 4.9 5.5 -10% 5 1
4 ABC 4.6 6.1 -24% 3 3
5 CW 1.5 2.1 -27%
6 MNT 0.8 0.5 54%
total 27.5 31.2 -12% 24 23
nights nights
viewers web viewers viewers viewers won won
rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 19.140 12.230 56% 12 7
2 CBS 8.300 16.818 -51% 3 12
3 NBC 7.769 8.449 -8% 4
4 ABC 7.294 9.499 -23% 3 3
5 CW 2.334 3.238 -28%
6 MNT 1.222 0.775 58%
total 46.06 51.01 -10% 22 22
This years and last years numbers are based upon final Nielsen numbers.
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Postscript
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AL asked me to do a special run of the FOX numbers this year and the CBS numbers last year to factor out the rotating Super Bowl. For FOX, I normalized their numbers by using an average of their second and third Sunday results. For CBS, I normalized their numbers by using their third Sunday results. Even without the Super Bowl, CBS continued to lead after 3 weeks last year, and so does FOX this year.
The adjusted results for FOX this year and CBS last year based on
normalizing to remove the Super Bowl inflation from the final numbers are as follows:
nights nights
demo web demo demo % won won
Rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 6.08 4.93 23% 13 10
4 CBS 2.25 4.10 -45% 1 7
nights nights
HH web HH HH HH won won
rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 8.7 7.1 23% 11 7
2 CBS 5.3 8.5 -38% 4 12
nights nights
viewers web viewers viewers viewers won won
rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 15.715 12.085 30% 11 7
2 CBS 8.122 13.652 -41% 3 12
