New Year’s Eve was not a great night for the TV networks, all of which lost audience shares from last year.
According to Nielsen Media Research, ABC,
the only network with a special (Dick Clark's Primetime New Year's Rockin’ Eve), scored a 5.6 during prime time, compared with a 6.2 last year, a 10% decline. From 11:30 to 1:00 am, the show picked up
with an 11, although it was 11.5 last year, another 5-10% decline, according to an ABC spokeswoman.
CBS and NBC ran its regular programs. CBS earned a 4.6 rating for its shows, compared with a
5.1 for a Sunday movie last New Year's Eve. NBC's shows did a 3.6 this year, compared with a 5.0 for a movie last year. Fox fared even worse, earning a 1.9 this year, compared with a much higher 3.7
for a special Billboard New Years Eve show last year.
These are primarily prime time numbers. Late night numbers for New Years Eve won't be available from Nielsen until next week.
"There's an erosion of the networks, with people going to cable," says Jordan Breslow, research manager at Mediacom, a division of Grey Worldwide. He says there are a number of new cable networks
that weren't on the air last year, such as WE, Toon Disney and SoapNet, which may have taken some viewers from network.
The other factor is that New Year's Eve was on a Monday this year, which
typically scores lower numbers than Sunday. Last year, some prime time programs started after NFL playoff games, giving them higher numbers. That didn't happen this year. Still, the networks can't be
too pleased about the end of 2001, a gloomy year for television, which ended on a downbeat.