This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Aug. 3-9, 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, 1.63% of the time was spent on the 2020 PGA Championship on CBS and 1.17% was spent on the PGA Championship on ESPN. NBA basketball games on TNT took third place with 0.95% share duration.
On the network side of things, of all minutes watched last week, 6.06% of the time was spent on CBS — a move up from the previous week where it was No. 4. Second and third places go to Fox News (6.04%) and ABC (5.46%). Notably, NBCSN zoomed into the No. 21 spot (previously it hadn’t been in the top 50).
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.
Sports led the ranking, with NBA basketball taking first place with over 2.5 billion TV ad impressions, followed by the 2020 PGA Championship (1.8 billion) and NHL hockey (1.2 billion). Aside from SportsCenter at No. 9, the rest of the top 10 spots all go to news-related programming. Non-news, talk or sports programming to make the top 25 include General Hospital, Days of our Lives, 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? and Big Brother.
Fox News (5.7 billion impressions) continues to reign supreme when it comes to the highest impression-generating networks, followed by NBC (3.5 billion) and CNN (3.4 billion). Sports-centric networks also made the top 25, including ESPN (2.8 billion impressions), NBC Sports (1.3 billion), MLB Network (412 million) and Golf (334.4 million).
