MLB Slides Into Third Place for Most-Watched TV Programming
Welcome to our weekly snapshot of TV by the numbers, highlighting the most-watched shows and networks for October 2-8, with insights from Inscape, the currency-grade smart TV ACR data provider and data technology division of Vizio. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).
Wild Card and Division Series games helped propel Major League Baseball into the upper ranks of TV most-watched programming as the season marches toward the World Series at the end of the month. Games captured a 2.66% viewership share, putting it solidly in third place behind only football.
Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:
Although they retain their first- and second-place positions, both NFL and college football saw decreases in watch-time compared to the previous week.
The Voice continues to move up the chart, taking tenth place with 0.59% of minutes watched for two blind audition episodes during the week.
Several news programs saw both a week-over-week increase in watch-time and ranking position: Good Morning America (No. 4), CNN News Central (No. 13), CBS Mornings (No. 14), Fox & Friends (No. 16), America’s Newsroom (No. 19) and The Five (No. 21).
Thanks to rerun marathons on ION and USA, Chicago Fire moves from No. 35 previously to No. 18 with 0.47% of watch-time. The only other week-over-week ranking newcomer is Family Feud (No. 23, 0.40%).
On the network side of things, NBC takes first place for the second week in a row, but saw watch-time decrease slightly, from 8.80% to 8.33%. NFL games, Today and The Voice were three of the programs fueling viewership on the network.
Additional insights around the most-watched networks from October 2-8:
CBS jumps from fourth to second place week-over-week with a 8.22% viewership share, driven by NFL and college football games.
Cable news networks (Fox News, MSNBC, CNN) each saw increases in watch-time compared to the previous week, with the latter also moving up the ranking from No. 11 to No. 9.
Both of the week-over-week ranking newcomers were sports networks: NFL Network jumps from No. 32 to No. 15 with a 1.16% viewership share, while Fox Sports 1 lands at No. 19, up from No. 34 previously (1.07% of minutes watched).