• by Wayne Friedman , July 17, 2023

Six months into 2023, there are 5% more linear household TV advertising impressions -- to 4.2 trillion -- yet national TV advertising spend has dropped 7.4% to $21.6 billion, according to iSpot.tv.

These results are for "first-airings" on linear TV, excluding regional sports networks.

For these TV airings, CBS took the highest share of voice (SOV) of TV advertising impressions with 14.3%, followed by ABC with 13.6%, NBC at 10.8%, Fox News Channel with 9.1%, ESPN at 6.2%, CNN with 4.9%, Univision at 4.5% and MSNBC with 4.3%.

Analysts note that ABC grew its TV ad impressions by 4.2% with fewer ad airings, while Fox News Channel declined 3% primarily due to the firing of prime-time host Tucker Carlson in April. Univision ad impressions moved 16.2% higher.

Prime time took in 25.0% of all ad impressions with daytime at 18.2%, early fringe at 13.8%, weekend afternoon at 10.5% and early morning at 8.2%.

Sports programming dominated the first half of 2023. NBA basketball, largely due to the playoffs/finals, grabbed the biggest share at 4.7%, followed by the NFL at 3.4%, men's college basketball at 3.0% and ESPN's “SportsCenter" at 1.7%.

Also placing high were two TV network morning shows: ABC's “Good Morning America” at 2.1% and NBC's “Today” at 1.7%.

TV ad impressions come from 52 million smart TV and set-top boxes.