This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Oct. 19-25, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.
Most-Watched Shows and Networks
Via Vizio’s Inscape, the TV data company with insights from a panel of more than 16 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).
Once again sports led for watch-time: NFL games captured 6.70% of the minutes watched last week, followed by the 2020 World Series (3.33%) and college football (1.53%). Various news programs also rose up in the rankings, and it’s worth noting that all of the shows that didn’t see week-over-week rankings changes were Fox News programs. The Voice, which had its two-night premiere on Oct. 19 and 20, jumped into 12th place with 0.57% of the minutes watched.
Fox took No. 1 on the network ranking for the second week in a row (10.09%), thanks in part to NFL and World Series games. NBC rose into second place with 8.19% of the minutes watched, partially fueled by NFL games and The Voice. Multiple cable networks also moved up, including two ranking newcomers: Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (0.92%) and TV Land (0.86%).
Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions
Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only.
TV ad impressions for NFL games jumped up 26.83% week-over-week, to 8.4 billion. MLB (3.4 billion) and college football (3.2 billion) maintained their second and third places, respectively. NBC’s The Voice, which kicked off its 19th season last week, snagged fourth place with 784.2 million TV ad impressions, nearly 110 million more than the No. 5 program (America’s Newsroom).
Not only did Fox keep its first-place position from the previous week, it delivered over 8.3 billion TV ad impressions, a 46.22% week-over-week increase. CBS, in second place with nearly 6.9 billion impressions, also saw an increase: 36.95%. Unsurprisingly, sports were critical to the impressions for both networks: On Fox, over 3.3 billion impressions came from MLB games and 3.2 billion from NFL games — combined, making up 78.8% of the network’s total impressions for the week. Over half of CBS’ impressions came from NFL games (3.2 billion), with Big Brother as the No. 2 impressions-driving program (419.3 million). Notable newcomers to the top 25 ranking included Hallmark (337.6 million impressions), which kicked off its “Countdown to Christmas” movie event on Oct. 24, and Big Ten Network (245.4 million), a result of the Big Ten conference finally starting their season.
