NBC wins coveted primetime demographic for first time in 10 years

NBC wins coveted primetime demographic for first time in 10 years

Thanks to a 13 percent boost in viewership during this season, NBC earns the No. 1 spot in primetime's most coveted demographic for the first time in ten years.

While three nights still remain in the 2013-14 primetime season, early Nielsen reports reveal that NBC was the No. 1 station in television this past broadcast year. With a 13 percent lift in viewership, this marks NBC’s first seasonal win in 10 years.

The station’s 18-night broadcast of the Sochi Olympics certainly helped acquire the viewership boost, but NBC states that they came out on top even if you take the Olympic viewer numbers out of the equation. This is definitely in large part thanks to their regular Sunday Night Football series and hit singing competition show The Voice. NBC’s Monday night schedule was also notably the top-rated regular schedule on any broadcast network in the demographic, with an average 4.3 rating for regular programming. The 13 percent boost in viewership brought their Nielsen rating for live plus same day program rating among viewers aged 18-49 to an impressive 2.7, a vast improvement from their 2.4 rating a year ago.

Losing February’s Super Bowl to Fox caused CBS, last season’s winner of the viewer race, to drop 17 percent. Surprisingly, broadcasting the Super Bowl didn’t raise Fox’s Nielsen score at all. They retained a 2.5 rating, enough to earn them second place this primetime season.

However, it is not all bad news for CBS this primetime season; they still win the race in overall primetime viewers, averaging around 10.7 million. This marks the sixth consecutive year that CBS can claim they are the nation’s most-watched network. NBC increased overall viewership 33 percent to 9.3 million, earning second. ABC comes next at 7.6 million, then Fox is at 7.4 million.

If you focus solely on regular television programming and remove scores from sports programs like Sunday Night Football, the Sochi Olympics, the Super Bowl, and Sunday night primetime overruns from afternoon games, CBS also would have won the coveted 18-49 viewer rating fight with a 2.3, as NBC and ABC would each have a 2.2 rating, and Fox would only boast a 2.0.

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