Is TV Feeling the Absence of Sports? Surprising Trends from Comcast's Viewership Report

Twice a year the company examines viewing trends in the aggregate compiling them into an extensive TV Viewership Report The most recent study was just released and contains a wealth of takeaways There are even a few surprises especially spoiler alert about Sports Coghill shared the results with MediaVillageTV Viewership Report TakeawaysThe report highlights according to Coghill quotsome surprising big picture viewing trendsquot After monitoring the data Coghill contradicts those who predict the demise of linear TV quotThere is a narrative in the press that television viewing is dying and what we39ve seen in the two years we39ve been tracking this viewing data is that viewing has actually increased every quarter year over year for the past eight quarters In the second quarter specifically we saw that there was 15 minutes more per household per day being spent with the television compared to second quarter last year That equates to about 17 more hours over the course of the quarterquotThere is great confidence in these findings quotWe are not limited by sample sizequot she explained quotso we can see superniche viewing that maybe in a paneltype measurement would get cut off because they are not meeting minimum reporting standardsquotCertainly sports39 absence has been looming large in any discussion of television viewing during the pandemic Even today there is uncertainty about which sports are coming back in what format and schedule and when Viewers want their sports programming and that desire is born out in the data and trends quotSports returned in Summer 2020 with the MLB season openers and the first NHL and NBA restart games averaging a viewership increase of 71 over last yearquot she notedquotSports fans are hungry for that type of contentquot so much so that she discovered quotpeople who are sports fans are not just a fan of one sport Fiftyfive percent of heavy viewers of one sport watch three or more sports heavily If certain sports aren39t happening or are delayed or postponed it39s not that those people aren39t tuning in We can find them wherever they are watchingquotTo that end Coghill is able to advise advertisers on how to reach those fans whose favorite sport might not be available at this time As part of the study Comcast data was placed in a viewing matrix that shows what other programming viewers of one sport are watching Take for example a college football fan quotWho knows what is going to happen with college football amp8211 it might not come back We can tell you where else you can reach those college football viewersquot she saidSince sports fans are sampling other types of sports while they wait for their favorite to return there is according to Coghill anecdotal evidence to suggest that fan bases of these secondary sports choices might increase quotWhen the PGA was one of the first sports to resume a lot of us at work were tuning into golf Not because we are golf fans but just because we are so hungry for live eventsquot she explainedThe data also showed an increase in viewing fragmentation partially attributed to the lack of sports tent pole events But quotviewing has increasedquot she stated quotAdvertisers need to move beyond being content focused and using content as a proxy to reach audiences They should follow those audiences everywhere they may be going So maybe it39s more spots across lesser rated networks or dayparts But if you aggregate all of those together we can still reach that audiencequotAs people shelterinplace Comcast found that households are overall spending even more time viewing television amp8211 about 15 minutes more per day in April to June compared to the same time last year In fact total hours of TV consumed in second quarter 2020 reached 85 billion hours which was an increase of over 200 million hours year over yearBreaking it down by daypart Coghill found that quotseventyone percent of all viewing happens outside of primequot On a market by market level she reported that quotaround the pandemic we looked at viewing regionally and it was interesting On the west coast where the coronavirus hit earlier we saw an uptick in viewership earlier than what we saw in the rest of the country and then it leveled out before the viewing for the rest of the country leveled outquotEven day to day comparisons showed a shift in recent usage quotCable39s share increased substantially from weekday to weekend from 62 during the weekday to 68 on the weekendquot she stated and added quotthat39s significant considering share between the two are typically consistentquot Cable39s dominance in weekend viewing quotis different from what we 39ve seen in the pastquot Coghill explained quotWe think that because sports aren39t happening there is less viewing going to the broadcast networks on the weekendsquotLooking AheadAre we seeing these new viewing habits holding for the long term quotI think there are some things that will level outquot Coghill admitted quotbut I think some shifts are here to stay The one thing that we39ve seen that is pretty consistent since the pandemic started in March is that there has been an increase in daytime viewing So as more people are home and kids are home from school more people are available to watch television during the day Until we resume some sort of normalcy that will be here to stayquot she concludedClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Is TV Feeling the Absence of Sports? Surprising Trends from Comcast's Viewership Report

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Charlene Weisler

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