CBS Claims 16th Straight Prime Time Viewing Title

George Winslow
·2 min read
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CBS logo.
CBS logo.

NEW YORK—CBS has declared that it will finish the 2023-24 season as "America's Most-Watched Network" in primetime for the 16th consecutive season.

CBS reported that it is currently averaging 5.59 million viewers, +580,000 ahead of second place NBC (5.01m), +1.30 million viewers ahead of third place ABC (4.29m) and +2.24 million viewers ahead of fourth place FOX (3.35m). All numbers are according to Nielsen live plus 7-day ratings through April 21.

The primetime win for the 2023-24 season, also breaks broadcast television's longest winning streak on record, also previously held by CBS, from 1955-1970, and marks CBS' 21st win in the last 22 years, the broadcaster reported.

The network is also poised to win the season in the key demos including A25-54, A18-49 and A18-34, CBS predicted.

In the 2023-24 season, CBS also noted that it currently has 13 of the top 20 broadcast series. The Network launched three new series (“Tracker”, “Elsbeth” and “NCIS: Sydney”), all of which are the top new series of the season. CBS is also home to television's four most-watched entertainment programs, the top four comedies and remains the #1 broadcast network in primetime among African American viewers.

The network also reported that viewers have watched more than 456 billion minutes of CBS entertainment, news and sports programming across the Network, Paramount+, Pluto TV and the CBS app from Jan. 1-April 21, 2024. This is +30% higher than the total time spent with Netflix originals and +231% higher than with originals on all other streaming competitors combined, CBS reported.

The 456 billion minutes watched of CBS programming is up +5.8% from the same time period last year.

"Minutes watched give us an apples-to-apples comparison to measure viewership across broadcast networks and digital platforms. CBS continues to aggregate a mass multiplatform audience with the Network programming up nearly +6% compared to this time last year, which speaks to how the popularity of our programming continues to resonate with viewers," said Radha Subramanyam, chief research and analytics officer at CBS.