• by Wayne Friedman , February 20, 2018

Pivotal Research Group says national advertising loads grew 3.9% to 11 minutes per hour across all Nielsen-tracked programming during January 2018 -- up from 10.5 minutes per hour in January 2017 and 10.4 minutes per hour in January 2016.

This helped networks keep commercial impressions at a mid-single-digit decline -- 7.3% in January 2018. “If ad loads held constant year-over-year, commercial impressions delivered would have fallen by double digits during the month,” writes Brian Wieser, senior research analyst at Pivotal.

Viacom continues to produce the largest share of C3 commercial impressions for a TV network group. In January, it was 14.9% -- down from 15.5% a year ago. Its average number of advertising minutes per hour stands at 14.6 versus 14.3 the year before.

NBCUniversal was at a 14% share of commercial impressions with an average 11.1 advertising minutes per hour -- flat versus a year ago. Time Warner saw a 11% share -- 8.9 advertising minutes per hour, up from 8.4 minutes.

Walt Disney held a 10% commercial viewing share (up from 9.4%) -- with average advertising minutes per hour at 7.9 versus 7.7. Fox Networks Group was at an 8.8% share, with ad minutes per hour rising to 10.4 from 10.

CBS also witnessed a rising commercial impressions share just for its broadcast network -- up to 5.7% (from 5.2%). Ad minutes per hour rose to 13 from 12.5.

Discovery Communications' commercial impressions share came in at 7.1% (from 7.0%), while AMC networks earned 5.3% (from 5.1%).