Cord-cutters are threatening cable like never before, and when subscribers head for the hills — so do their eyeballs.
No one knows about subscriber loss quite like ESPN — well, except for The Weather Channel — and the Disney-owned cable network is beginning to feel the effects on its viewership as well. While ESPN still pretty comfortably topped 2015 across basic cable primetime in both the key 18-49 demographic and among total viewers, it slid 9 percent and 8 percent in those metrics, respectively, from 2014.
Below, TheWrap has ranked the Top 50 basic cable channels for calendar 2015 by total viewers, to avoid any of that pesky demographic selection stuff.
Some highlights (and, we suppose, a few lowlights): This year, USA dropped 16 percent, landing behind TBS and settling for third place. It wasn’t all good news for Turner Broadcasting across-the-board, however, as sister channel TNT fell all the way to sixth, and truTV dropped 26 percent year over year — marking the worst slide on a percentage basis across the entire Top 50 basic cable channels. Thank goodness for offsetting CNN growth, which jumped 28 percent, one year ahead of the actual election year.
The biggest growers in our Top 50 are CNBC and INSP (formerly the Inspiration Network), both up 39 percent in total viewers from 2014. All averages below are from Dec. 29, 2014 to Nov. 29, 2015, allowing for the inclusion of full seven-day delayed viewing.
History’s H2 just barely made its way on our list at No. 50, which, if this was the NFL Draft, would make it “Mr. Irrelevant” in our truncated study.
Here are the Top 50 basic cable channels of 2015, ranked by their seven-day averages in primetime total viewers:
- ESPN: 2.022 million
- TBS: 1.876 million
- USA: 1.850 million
- Disney: 1.784 million
- Fox News: 1.775 million
- TNT: 1.766 million
- Discovery: 1.549 million
- History: 1.536 million
- HGTV: 1.498 million
- AMC: 1.443 million
- Adult Swim: 1.307 million
- FX: 1.251 million
- Food Network: 1.129 million
- Lifetime: 1.065 million
- Nick at Nite: 1.027 million
- Syfy: 1.006 million
- ABC Family: 985,000
- A&E: 959,000
- TLC: 944,000
- ID: 891,000
- Hallmark: 881,000
- Bravo: 872,000
- Spike: 790,000
- CNN: 672,000
- Animal Planet: 652,000
- Disney Junior: 644,000
- VH1: 642,000
- TV Land: 608,000
- MTV: 606,000
- BET: 598,000
- MSNBC: 576,000
- Comedy Central: 569,000
- E!: 568,000
- National Geographic Channel: 544,000* (rounded tie)
- OWN: 544,000* (rounded tie)
- WETV: 523,000
- truTV: 476,000
- Lifetime Movie Network 462,000
- Nick Jr.: 440,000
- Travel: 438,000
- GSN: 434,000
- ESPN2: 432,000
- FXX: 413,000
- Hallmark Movies: 410,000
- FS1: 406,000
- INSP: 389,000
- NBCSN: 381,000
- CNBC: 375,000
- Disney XD: 370,000
- H2: 348,000