Fox Wins 2019-20 TV Season in Demo, CBS Tops Viewers for 12th Straight Year

With its lean and mean — and meaningfully unscripted — slate, Fox is on track to win the 2019-2020 TV season, topping the broadcast-TV pack for the first time in eight years.

All told, Fox is averaging a 1.8 demo rating in the coveted 18-49 demo (per “most current”/DVR-inclusive numbers), up 13 percent from last year. NBC places second with a 1.4 rating (down 18% YOY), followed by ABC (1.1, down 15%) and CBS (1.1, down 31%), and then The CW (0.3, down 25%).

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If you exclude Fox’s hosting of this year’s Super Bowl as well as the well-watched NFC Championship game, it still retains its No. 1 spot. But if you subtract out all sports programming, both NBC and ABC catch up to Fox for the top spot.

(Here is where it must be noted that sports occupies a lot of Fox’s slate, including but not limited to Thursday Night Football, the WWE’s Friday Night SmackDown and college football on Saturdays, whereas ABC, CBS and NBC schedule around 20 hours of in-season entertainment programming per week.)

Among Fox’s superlatives, it boasted the season’s No. 1 entertainment series (The Masked Singer) and the top four new series: LEGO Masters (aka the No. 1-rated new reality series), 9-1-1: Lone Star (the No. 1 new scripted show), The Masked Singer: After the Mask and Prodigal Son.

In Total Viewers, Fox is also the only network to be up year-over-year, but CBS still leads all in that measure. In fact, CBS was “America’s Most Watched Network” for the 12th year in a row (and 17th out of the last 18) with an average audience of 7.7 million (down 13% YOY). NBC places second with 6.6 million (down 8%), followed by Fox (6.4 mil, up 19%), ABC (virtually steady with 5.5 mil) and The CW (1.1 mil, down 15 percent).

Among the feathers in CBS’ cap, it is home to the most watched drama (NCIS, 15.3 mil), comedy (Young Sheldon (11.4 mil), new drama (FBI: Most Wanted) and new comedy (Bob Hearts Abishola).

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