Future of Commercial TV

The only shows I'm currently watching from that list are The Good Place (NBC), Lucifer (FOX), and The Orville (FOX)

I probably wouldn't be watching The Orville if I hadn't already been watching The Good Place just before it.

There is a bunch of stuff there that I used to watch but don't anymore-
Once Upon a Time, Modern Family (mostly only syndicated reruns anyway), The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob's Burgers, Gotham.
Some of the others I watched once or twice, most of the rest I've had no interest in watching after seeing previews and commercials.
I'm currently giving The Gifted a chance, though I missed all but the last 10 minutes of the 2nd episode and haven't bothered to find it streaming yet.

Quote: Pacomartin

Average viewers in Millions
5.158 ABC average
6.195 NBC average
3.517 FOX average
9.172 CBS average

With the Average viewers of broadcast at record low, and ABC without any sports has revenue way below YouTube, discussions of selling broadcast have continued for some time.

Do those numbers include the households that recorded the shows but did not watch it live?

Quote: Pacomartin

Average viewers in Millions
5.158 ABC average
6.195 NBC average
3.517 FOX average
9.172 CBS average

If I am reading this right, 24 million viewers. Not even 1/10 of the USA. Even assuming 3 people per household, still 80% not watching!

Quote: AZDuffman

If I am reading this right, 24 million viewers. Not even 1/10 of the USA. Even assuming 3 people per household, still 80% not watching!

I remember in the 60's it was common
for one show on one network to get
30 mil viewers every week if it was a
hit show.

Quote: DRich

Do those numbers include the households that recorded the shows but did not watch it live?

No, there are separate ratings for that. But sponsors take them less seriously because viewers fast forward through those commercials. Video on Demand or watching on browsers often have locks so that you can't skip over the commercials.

Total viewership used to be in percent of households that owned television that were watching them.

1950s I Love Lucy 67.3% (1952–1953)
1960s Gunsmoke 43.1% (1957–1958)
1970s All in the Family 34.0% (1971–1972)
1980s The Cosby Show 34.9% (1986–1987)
1990s 60 Minutes 28.4% (1979–1980)
2000s American Idol 17.6% (2005–2006)
2010s NBC Sunday Night Football 13.3% (2015–2016)

But those numbers would be so small today for most shows as to be embarrassing so Nielsen refined methods to get a count of total viewers.

Quote: Pacomartin

Total viewership used to be in percent of households that owned television that were watching them.

1950s I Love Lucy 67.3% (1952–1953)

I can't imagine anything today drawing 67% of households.



Not until Big Twit decides to put telescreens tuned to Fox News, that is.

Quote: Nareed

I can't imagine anything today drawing 67% of households.

When I Love Lucy premiered just having a TV was bit of a novelty.

Quote: AZDuffman

Layoffs Hit ABC as Rumors About the Network's Future Swirl

Is it possible Disney thinks there is little future? Would they spin it off with ESPN as a package?

Disney saw it's operating income in both Cable and Broadcast drop in the last quarter
Cable was at 35.78% as opposed to 45.07% last year of revenue due to problems at ESPN
Broadcast was at 14.21% as opposed to 19.05% last year of revenue due to general lack of interest and the defection of Sondra Rhimes to Netflix.

As cable is 279% the total revenue of broadcast, the drop in cable means $431 million less operational income, while broadcast is a drop of $72 million.

For the first 9 months of this year, Disney has had Segment operating income drop in 3 out of 4 divisions with total down 5%.
Media Networks (cable and broadcast) -11%
Parks and Resorts +17%
Studio Entertainment -8%
Consumer Products & Interactive Media -11 %

AT&T’s DirecTV and U-verse TV businesses reported a record quarterly loss of 385,000 traditional pay-TV subs,
That was partially offset by 296,000 net adds for the DirecTV Now service (which costs about half as much).

Meanwhile, AT&T’s proposed $85 billion takeover of Time Warner remains pending.

The problem I see now is that many content producers also distribute content online. therefore the market is fragmented. The old cable companies dind't produce content, just distributed it.

Can you see a similar consolidation online, where producing content is one business and distributing it is another? right now if you like a few shows per online distributor and want to see them all, it can cost a lot.