CBS has entered the realm of its streaming rivals — at the least by way of the best way it measures viewing on a given platform.
The community on Wednesday launched a chart exhibiting what number of minutes viewers have spent with CBS within the 2021-22 season to this point, and it’s a staggeringly massive quantity: 166.74 billion minutes with community programming throughout all dayparts over the primary seven weeks of the season (Sept. 20 to Nov. 7), in keeping with Nielsen figures. That’s equal to each individual in the USA watching greater than eight hours of CBS programming.
What the discharge doesn’t notice is how that stacks up with streaming platforms, so The Hollywood Reporter dug into the accessible numbers there to give you a comparability. Extra on that under.
CBS leads all different broadcasters in whole minutes considered, with NBC (130.84 billion minutes) coming in second. Fox is third with 108.63 billion minutes; all three networks have common NFL programming throughout the week that provides a number of billion minutes of viewing time. (CBS says its viewers have watched 45 billion minutes of NFL protection this fall). ABC — the one one of many large 4 networks with out a common NFL presence — has 98.54 billion minutes of watch time. (The figures solely embrace community programming and never native information and syndicated programming on associates.)
Complete viewing time is Nielsen’s metric for streaming programming, and CBS’ launch is supposed to level out the endurance of conventional TV in a time when, in keeping with Nielsen’s most up-to-date survey of TV utilization, streaming has nudged previous broadcast.
“Whereas ‘time spent’ has primarily been a streamers’ metric, it really demonstrates the persevering with power and scale of broadcast tv, and CBS particularly,” stated George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS and chief content material officer information and sports activities at ViacomCBS’ streaming outlet Paramount+.
To give you a tough estimate for streaming, THR checked out Nielsen’s prime 10 streaming charts for the primary 4 weeks of the season (the one ones accessible as of publication time). From Sept. 20 to Oct. 17, the highest 10 authentic collection, acquired exhibits and films within the charts amassed a complete of 59.53 billion minutes of viewing time, or a mean of 14.88 billion minutes per week. Extrapolating that to seven weeks provides a determine simply over 104 billion minutes.
In fact, solely trying on the Nielsen prime 10s is fairly limiting: It excludes lots of if not hundreds of different titles on Disney+, Hulu, Apple TV+, Netflix and Prime Video, the 5 retailers Nielsen consists of in its weekly reviews — to not point out on a regular basis customers spend on HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock and a number of area of interest streamers that aren’t reported publicly.
With out extra knowledge, it’s unimaginable to give you a extra exact tally for streaming. On condition that streaming and broadcast have related utilization tallies, in keeping with Nielsen (28 p.c of whole TV use for streaming and 26 p.c for broadcast), it’s seemingly that the total streaming universe is on par with or barely forward of the five hundred billion-plus minutes recorded for broadcasters.
Apart from the NFL, Netflix’s breakout hit Squid Recreation has racked up probably the most watch time with 10.45 billion minutes from Sept. 20 to Oct. 17. The largest present CBS mentions individually is The Worth Is Proper; the long-running daytime recreation present has racked up 8.6 billion minutes of viewing within the fall.
