For the first time in a very, very long time, not a single broadcast drama or comedy broke the 10 million viewer mark in Nielsen’s season-long ratings.
Only two primetime NFL Showcases – NBC’s Weekly Sunday night football (18.14 million viewers) and ABC’s four Monday night football broadcasts (10.46 million) — attracted millions of viewers in the double digits for the 2022-23 season. That’s according to the latest seven-day Nielsen ratings for the 2022-23 season, which concluded on May 24.
Similarly, the number of shows achieving a rating of 1.0 or better fell in the key demographic of adults aged 18-49 in terms of ad sales: where two dozen shows (excluding live sports) reached that goal in 2021-22, only three non-football series did this year: CBS’ Survivor (1.04), Foxs 911 (1.0) and NBCs Chicago PD (1.0). Fire in Chicago is just below that threshold at 0.99.
After football, CBS’s NCIS is the most-watched show on the broadcast networks with 9.86 million viewers; the network has eight of the top 10 most-watched series (again, excluding sports) for the season.
Where have those missing viewers gone? Partly by streaming, which isn’t measured in Nielsen’s seven-day ratings, but can increase a show’s audience by 30 percent or more over the course of a week for scripted series. For example, CBS claimed seven shows with at least 10 million cross-platform viewers and five with 11 million or more.
Viewers under 50 are also more likely to stream shows than watch them live or through a DVR, meaning a number of other series have likely crossed the Mulaney Line (so-named after John Mulaney’s short-lived 2014 Fox sitcom, which had a 1.0 rating at the time). was a likely death knell) with the cross-platform boost.
Of the 132 network series that aired in 2022-23 (excluding pre- and post-game sports shows, specials, and shows that primarily ran during the summer), 15 achieved total viewership gains from a season ago. Only five received a score of 18-49 and six others were even in the key demo.
Seven-day Nielsen ratings for the 2022-23 season are below.
