Pandemic-driven, at-home TV consumption went in two different directions last year. Digital video continued to see rapid gains.
The top four networks collectively are down 17% in Nielsen-measured average prime-time viewers and 23% in average prime-time 18-49 viewers. CBS is 22% lower to 5.6 million, while NBC is down 20% to
5.0 million, ABC is down 13% to 4.5 million and Fox is 10% less to 4.2 million.
Nielsen is adding ad spend by advertiser across national/local TV and Spanish-language national/local TV to its publicly disclosed top 10 TV-related lists. The top five biggest national TV advertisers
in October are Procter & Gamble, Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, General Motors and Progressive. The top five local TV advertisers for the month are Joe Biden for President, Toyota Motor Corp., the House
Majority PAC, General Motors and the Democratic National Committee. The top two Spanish-language national TV advertisers are P&G and Verizon.
Analysis of longer time-shifted availability of network prime-time shows up to a week after the initial first airing may not be helping TV networks much.
While live-plus-same day and/or live-plus-seven days of time-shifted viewing are the coin of network TV's advertising realm, Nielsen has published an analysis making the case for much longer windows
of playback viewing -- upwards of 35 days.
Overall, TiVo says live TV still sees the strongest results from viewers. Two of the better-performing vMVPDs are Hulu with Live TV, which is 3% lower in "use," and Sling TV, down 7%.