Sports TV Trends and Analysis -- Pivotal Research Group

Sports programming remains an important source of viewing of traditional TV networks As a genre it represents an outsized source of costs revenues and strategic leverage between networks and distributors We estimate that viewing of sports programming on national TV properties during 2016 amounted to approximately 36bn personhours on a livesameday basis across all dayparts and all people and around 38bn personhours including timeshifting on a similar basis This represented 10 of total national TV viewing hours including 7 days of DVR playback which amounted to 374bn personviewing hours during 2016 All live and timeshifted viewing which includes viewing on local properties amounted to around 490bn personviewing hours in 2016As is wellknown live sports viewing has generally held up well despite ratings declines and has become increasingly important for national network owners Over the past decade livesameday viewing hours of sports programming is actually up by nearly 7 in total although half of this growth was attributable to the inclusion of summer Olympics in 2016 vs winter Olympics in 2006 Over the past year all nationally rated sports viewing on a livesameday basis and on a live7 basis was up by 5 during 2016 over 2015 although excluding Olympics viewing was down by 3 For reference all other nationally rated viewing hours fell by 1 during 2016 vs 2015 By network group during 2016 Disney properties primarily including ESPN accounted for 32 of total viewing NBCU properties generated 20 of viewing with more than a third due to Olympics programming Fox properties captured around 16 of total viewing while CBS represented 13 of the totalKey observations from our analysis through week 11 of the calendar year ending Sunday March 12 for which livesameday data became available yesterday followYeartodate viewing of sports TV on national media properties has fallen by 1 For the 11th week itself similar sports viewing was up by 6 Disneyowned properties accounted for 47 of all sportsrelated viewing during the week representing growth of 9 yearoveryearDuring the most recent week basketball was dominant as is typical this time of year with a 47 share of sports viewing on a personviewing hours39 basis College basketball by itself accounted for nearly 36 while NBA programming accounted for 11 Total viewing of all basketball was up by 14 with college basketball up by 13 and professional basketball up by 14 ESPNrelated networks amp8211 which collectively accounted for 63 of all basketball viewing amp8211 has been the primary beneficiary here with viewing up by 30 Basketball continues to grow in importance for the sports genre rising from 14 of live viewing to 20 between 2006 and 2016 representing cumulative growth of 7 over that timeSports Commentaries eg ESPN39s SportsCenter was the nextmost important type of sports programming with a 16 programviewing share for the week This figure represents a decline from a 17 share last year For the week viewing was actually up by 2 but yeartodate viewing has fallen by 9 for the genre ESPN and related properties amp8211 again the biggest player with 75 of related viewing during the week amp8211 saw a 6 decline for the week building to a 14 decline yeartodate for their networks Commentaries continue to diminish in importance with consumption falling by 32 from the 2010 peak On a full year basis commentaries accounted for 29 of sports viewing during 2016 down from 33 in 2010 and 35 in 2012All other sports genres were relatively minor during the week with golf and baseball accounting for 6 of viewing and soccer around 5FULL REPORT INCLUDING RISKS AND DISCLOSURES CAN BE FOUND HERE TV Update 31717pdfThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT | BECOME A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTOR

Sports TV Trends and Analysis -- Pivotal Research Group

Author

Publish date

Channel

Brian Wieser

We Are the Outliers - By Jack Myers

More Videos:

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT | BECOME A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTOR

Sports TV Trends and Analysis -- Pivotal Research Group

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Brian Wieser

We Are the Outliers - By Jack Myers

Cookies