This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Aug. 24-30, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.
Most-Watched Shows and Networks
Via Inscape.tv, the TV data company with insights from a panel of more than 15 million smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).
Looking at shows, of all the minutes watched by smart TVs that Inscape measured in all dayparts, 1.94% of the time was spent on NBA games on TNT, putting it in first place for the second week in a row. Good Morning America and America’s Newsroom take second and third place, respectively, while CNN’s America's Choice 2020: Republican National Convention was in fourth place with 0.78% share duration and Weather Channel’s coverage of Hurricane Laura took fifth (0.75%).
On the network side of things, of all minutes watched last week, 7.57% of the time was spent on Fox News, 6.05% was spent on NBC and 5.48% on ABC. Fox, TNT and HGTV all inched up the ranking compared to the previous week, while The Weather Channel sped into the top 15, up from No. 48 last week.
Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions
Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only.
Once again, NBA basketball leads TV ad impressions by a wide margin, with nearly 3.3 billion impressions last week. Second place goes to coverage of Hurricane Laura with 1.6 billion impressions, followed by PGA Tour Golf (1 billion) and America’s Newsroom (971.2 million). Two programs dedicated to coverage of the 2020 Republican National Convention also made the top 25 ranking: MSNBC’s Decision 2020: Republican National Convention and CNN’s America's Choice 2020: Republican National Convention.
Once again, Fox News takes first place with over 6.7 billion TV ad impressions, 1 billion more than the previous few weeks. NBC was in second place with 4.2 billion impressions, followed by CNN (3.4 billion), Weather Channel (3.2 billion) and CBS (2.9 billion). Multiple sports-centric networks also made the top 25, including NBC Sports (1 billion), Golf (709.7 million), Fox Sports 1 (297 million) and MLB Network (272.8 million).
