TV’s Quarantine Ratings High Is No More
By Allyson Vannatta, Senior Writer
After months of high ratings for broadcast television viewership, the numbers have faded back to normal. However, streaming is still outperforming numbers from last year.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, during the first week of June, less than 20 percent of the population was watching TV at any point during the day.
Analyst Rich Greenfield of LightShed Partners said the drop in linear ratings could be in part from the states opening up combined with warmer weather.
“The fundamental shift away from linear TV has clearly accelerated in streaming’s favor. Catalogs are vast and linear TV is mostly in reruns now that the season is over, so it makes sense that streaming is even more compelling now,” he said.
Related: Why are Remotely Produced Shows Seeing a Drop in Ratings?
Nielsen’s Total Use of Television metric showed that before quarantine, an average of 19.2 percent of people were watching TV at any given time.
Three weeks into quarantine, the number grew to 24.6 percent.
Shows across networks experienced season high numbers during this time, but by the end of the season the rating numbers dropped drastically.
Now, Nielsen reports that broadcast television has dropped back to 19.6 percent.
Streaming numbers have a similar story.
At the beginning of stay-at-home orders, streaming exploded, with twice as much time being spent consuming content than the previous year for three weeks in a row.
During the first week of June, streaming was down 26 percent from its April peak, which accounts for 126.1 billion minutes.
Movieguide® previously reported that Nielsen predicted a 60 percent usage surge while people stayed at home during quarantine.
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