CBS Programming Generates More Than 280B Viewing Minutes In First Quarter Of 2023, Rivaling Audience For Netflix Original Content
CBS programming generated more than 281B minutes of viewing across all dayparts in the first quarter of the year, with more than 30% dedicated to primetime content.
According to the broadcaster, primetime entertainment programming tallied more than 92B of the network’s total minutes watched. The FBI franchise alone drew more than 15B minutes viewed with the NCIS franchise right on its heels.
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Sports generated 77B viewing minutes, while news content aggregated around 57B. In late night, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert drew 8.5B viewing minutes. Daytime was responsible for 53B led by The Price Is Right and The Young and The Restless.
The viewing measurements use Nielsen’s “most current” data for all content, which includes 35-day windows where possible. The data for the broadcast networks doesn’t include multi-platform viewing because CBS doesn’t have access to its competitors internal data. The CBS number does include any live streaming on Paramount+.
While it’s not a perfect unit of measurement, reporting viewership in total minutes does allow for a comparison between the broadcast networks and streaming services, since this is the metric in which Nielsen measures streaming viewership. The streamers have notoriously kept audience data close to the chest because they aren’t bound by the same third-party reporting agencies that track broadcast metrics and are able to report viewership numbers at their own discretion.
Many of them, including Paramount+, do not reveal any viewing metrics on their own. So far, Netflix is the only streaming service to consistently release any audience data with its weekly Top 10 lists (and reporting in hours or minutes viewed heavily favors streaming models).
In addition to the big four broadcast networks (CBS, ABC, Fox, and NBC), Nielsen’s viewing data for the quarter also includes the total viewing minutes for all original content across Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video and HBO Max.
The data shows that CBS came in second only to Netflix, which generated a whopping 337B viewing minutes from its original content in the first quarter. This is primarily due to the sheer volume of original titles on Netflix, which frequently dominates Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming lists.
By these measurements, audiences spent nearly four times more time with CBS programing than the combined minutes spent watching SVOD originals on Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+ and HBO Max.
NBC and ABC came in about 100B viewing minutes behind CBS (191B and 181B viewing minutes, respectively) and Fox was last among the big four broadcasters with about 129B viewing minutes — which is still far above the second place streamer, which was Prime Video with about 30B viewing minutes.
The data for the streamers doesn’t include any acquired or licensed content, which of course is a huge source of viewership for all of them. Presumably, the numbers are even more unbalanced for HBO Max, which is differentiated from HBO among Nielsen’s streaming metrics. That means viewing for shows like The Last Of Us and Succession wouldn’t be included in streamer’s 8B viewing minutes for the quarter.
When factoring in streaming for HBO originals, HBO Max’s total is up to 43B viewing minutes for the quarter — which is still a far cry from the broadcast nets but would put it well above any of the other measured streamers.
“CBS’ strong first quarter viewership demonstrates the enduring popularity of our programming across all genres and dayparts,” says Radha Subramanyam, CBS chief research and analytics officer. “Outperforming broadcast and streaming competitors, the Network continues to be a leading multiplatform brand while aggregating audiences of significant scale.”
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