How Bad Was It? NBC Lost 7% of Its Primetime Viewers in 2021-22, and Still Led Linear (Chart of the Day)

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Get as few as 5 million people to watch your network every night, and you too could be No. 1

NBC series 'La Brea'
NBC series 'La Brea' (Image credit: NBCUniversal)

As media conglomerates led by Warner Bros. Discovery conduct terrorized, ashen-faced retreats from the free-flowing red ink of the Streaming Wars, they should keep this in mind: Linear will provide them no safe quarterly shelter. 

The latest distillation of 2021-22 primetime average audiences by major broadcast and cable networks, assembled by Nielsen and blasted out to social Wednesday night by LightShed Partners, lays it pretty bare. 

NBC, which saw its average primetime audience decline by a whopping 7% year over year, won the 2021-22 TV season averaging 5.148 million viewers in primetime, narrowly surpassing CBS, which lost 8% of its watchers and averaged 5.144 million souls. 

Fox finished fourth among the Big Four broadcast webs losing 14% of its audience -- no doubt in part because it lost NFL "Thursday Night Football" to Amazon. 

ESPN, until now, the lynchpin of the pay TV ecosystem, lost 14% of its primetime viewers. 

And as LightShed's Rich Greenfield pointed out, TNT lost 12% of its average primetime aud, affirming WBD's stated reluctance to charge into an NBA licensing renewal. 

Oh, and Fox News was essentially the only major linear network that managed to come close to flat year over year.

Let that cheer you up. 

Nielsen

(Image credit: Nielsen)

Even more disturbing has been linear's erosion in its most key audience demographic, adults 18-49. NBC won that arena, too, despite a 13% year-over-year decline.

(Image credit: LightShed Partners)
Daniel Frankel
Daniel Frankel

Daniel Frankel is the managing editor of Next TV, an internet publishing vertical focused on the business of video streaming. A Los Angeles-based writer and editor who has covered the media and technology industries for more than two decades, Daniel has worked on staff for publications including E! Online, Electronic Media, Mediaweek, Variety, paidContent and GigaOm. You can start living a healthier life with greater wealth and prosperity by following Daniel on Twitter today!