Kansas City Chiefs, World Series and TV Dramas Boost Broadcast to Highest Usage Share Since January

Broadcast viewership was boosted by the NFL, MLB and popular drama series in October, with the category growing 7% month-over-month to finish with a total TV usage share of 24% — its largest share since January and the third consecutive month of growth.

The gains were driven by a 29% increase in viewing of drama programs and 10% bump in sports viewership, with the NFL accounting for the top 16 most-watched programs. The Week 7 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers drew October’s largest audience with 27 million viewers on Fox. Outside of football, Game 1 of the World Series on Fox notched 15.2 million viewers and captured 17th on the list of top telecasts.  

Meanwhile, cable accounted for 26.3% of total TV usage in October and reported its first positive share change since April (+0.2 percentage points).

The increase for cable was led by a 5% gain in news viewing from the Vice Presidential Debate and month-long coverage leading up to Election Day, along with a 52% surge in sports viewing from the NFL’s “Monday Night Football,” college football and the MLB playoff games. The MNF match-up between Kansas City and New Orleans took the top spot on the most-watched cable telecast list for the month with 14 million viewers, followed by Fox News Channel’s coverage of the VP debate with 7.9 million viewers. On a year-over-year basis, cable news was up 17% and sports was up 14%.

Streaming viewership remained flat for the month, but the category still accounted for the majority of time spent with a total share of 40.5%.

YouTube and Netflix held steady with shares of 10.6% and 7.5%, respectively. Though Netflix was down 4% on a year-over-year basis, it managed to own the top five streaming originals in October, led by “Love Is Blind” with 4.4 billion viewing minutes.

Prime Video took the third place spot with a share of 3.5%, followed by Disney+ and Hulu tied with shares of 2.4%. The Roku Channel also caught up to Tubi, with the former seeing a 12% month-over-month increase to 1.8%. Rounding out the remainder of the list was Peacock with a share of 1.3%, Max and Paramount+ with 1.2% each and Pluto with 0.8%.

The measurement period included the week of Sept. 30 to Oct. 27. A portion of Hulu’s viewing, which was estimated at approximately 25%, was inadvertently attributed to Disney+, but was addressed at the end of October and will be correct moving forward. The issue will not impact October’s Media Distributor Gauge.

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