Cable TV Rankings 2016: Presidential Politics Fuels Ratings Gains
December 20, 2016
With presidential politics taking over as viewers’ contact sport of choice, FNC enjoyed a 36% year-to-year total-viewer spike, while ESPN tumbled 11%, after 2015’s 7% decline.
But FNC wasn’t the only cable news network benefiting. CNN enjoyed a Trump-fueled 77% total-viewers spike, pushing AMC out of the yearly primetime Top 10; last year, CNN only notched a 24th-place finish.
This year, AMC will settle for 11th place, after dropping 9% year to year.
And MSNBC, last year’s No. 29-ranked basic cable net in overall primetime crowd, jumped 87% to land at No. 12 with 1.1M viewers compared with previous year’s 596K.
The rest of 2016’s Top 10 list is the Land of Double-Digit Declines, save USA Network, which dropped a more modest 8%, and HGTV, the only non-news network to experience audience again in primetime crowd, to the tune of 5%.
ESPN hung on to the top spot in the coveted 18-49 demographic group, with 816K viewers in that age bracket. But here too the network tumbled, 12%, on the heels of last year’s 9% slip.
In the demo, as in overall audience, the biggest year-to-year gains were enjoyed by the news networks. CNN spiked a massive 90% in the 18-49 age group, logging 373K primetime viewers to outstrip FNC (354K, up 51%) for the year. In the percentage racket, CNN was beaten by MSNBC, which climbed 99% from last year’s negligible 104K to 207K this year.
But TBS was No. 2 in the demo to ESPN with 729K viewers, despite sloughing off 13% of its audience;
Here are the 2016 rankings in total viewers and demo through December 18:
BASIC CABLE RANKINGS 2016(Total Viewers in millions) |
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BASIC CABLE RANKINGS 2016(Adults 18-49 in Thousands) |
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