Trends related to news media properties for the week ending Sept. 17, the 38th week of the year, were positive yet again, with viewing up +5% across all news networks. For the year, viewing is still up a remarkable +11%. Year-to-date, MSNBC is still the fastest growing network of the three with year-over-year growth of +58%.
By contrast, sports viewing was down again, falling by -13% during the week, worse than last week as well as the year-to-date ex-Olympics trend of -6% (sports viewing year-to-date would be down -16% including Olympics weeks in both years). Notably, NFL football, which accounted for 52% of the week's sports viewing in terms of person-hours, was down by -16% year-over-year despite +4% more hours of program time vs last year, with the lowest level of same week viewing since 2010. These results will be likely viewed negatively in context of concerns about declining interest in football, although we note that last week's weather may have contributed to at least some of the year-over-year decline.
Additional details relevant to different sports and news programming as well as related media owners follow in this note.
FULL REPORT INCLUDING RISKS AND DISCLOSURES CAN BE FOUND HERE: TV Update 9-20-17 news and sports.pdf
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