Big Four Audience Up for First Time Since 2006

With one week left in the 2009-10 season, broadcast networks set for narrow audience growth

The demise of the network television business has been greatly exaggerated … or at least forestalled by good statistical news.

With one week left in the 2009-10 season, the Big Four networks are set to narrowly grow their collective audience for the first time since 2006, and only the second time since 1995, according to Nielsen data

With only one network, ABC (down 3.9 percent) showing declines, the Big Four’s collective prime-time audience has increased this season by about 1 percent, to just over 39 million a night.

This comes two years after the whopping 6.2 percent drop that occurred in the writers strike-plagued 2007-08 season.

CBS has been a key driver for the surge, with broad-skewing procedurals like “NCIS” helping the network draw the biggest overall viewership average (although Fox is still ahead when it comes to the key demo the networks sell advertising against, adults 18-49).

Event programming is also a considerable factor, with NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage averaging 24.4 million viewers (you’ll notice that 2006, the last time total viewership spiked, was also a Winter Olympics year.

“All these big, special-event shows really fueled the ratings, said Horizon Media programming analyst Brad Adgate to Bloomberg.

Of course, the trend-line is still headed southward, with total audience average down 17 percent over the last decade.

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