The Broadcast Networks are Dead (Long Live Cable!)

That sound you hear is the sound of broadcast networks executives’ heads exploding.

Summer ratings for the broadcast television networks – ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and the CW, the networks that, through their affiliates, literally “broadcast” their programming – have been disastrous, even worse than anticipated.

According to the entertainment industry newspaper Variety, viewership of the “Big Four” broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, is down 9% in total viewers, down 15% in the 18-49 demo that advertisers covet, and down a whopping 18% in the 18-34 demographic that advertisers desire even more.

CBS’ ratings are holding steady, but ABC, NBC, and Fox are down by at least 20% – and, for the week of June 15-21, ABC actually saw its average weekly rating sink below that of a cable network, USA, in what may be a "first".

It’s not that people are watching less television (although it’s true that younger age-groups are spending more time online, often to the exclusion of television-viewing).

It’s that people are choosing to watch cable television rather than the broadcast networks.

“It’s the continuation of a trend that’s been going on since the early 80s,” says Bill Gorman, editor of the TV rating and analysis site TVbytheNumbers.com. “Viewers continue making the 30-year shift from watching broadcast to watching cable.”

Cable’s current breakout hits include Jon & Kate Plus 8 (on TLC with more than 10 million viewers), Princess Protection Program (on Disney, with more than 8 million viewers), and The Closer (on TNT, with more than 6 million viewers). Viewerships like these put them among the highest rated shows of the week, whether on broadcast or cable.

Jon & Kate Plus 8 - a massive hit by any standard

In fact, cable networks now run five of the top 20 highest rating programs on television (compared to only two last year).

Meanwhile, the summer premiere of the second season of HBO’s True Blood drew an astounding 3.7 million viewers (5.1 million when you factor in an 11 PM repeat the same time). All this on a pay cable network.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Ratings for the broadcast networks plunged last year too, and cable ratings rose, but the broadcast networks explained that away by saying it was because of the writers’ strike and the abbreviated schedules of most of their premiere shows.

Instead, the year after the writers’ strike, the massive viewing shift has continued unabated. And February’s change from analog to digital broadcast brought several million more viewers into the cable fold.

According to Gorman, it’s finances that are accelerating the change. “Cable is spending more money on their shows,” making them better, he says. “With more viewers, they have more money to spend.”

At the same time, corporations that have investments in both broadcast and cable – like NBC Universal, which owns both NBC and the USA and SyFy cable channels – are seeing the writing on the wall and are shifting resources from broadcast to cable.

The upshot is that this summer may finally spell the end of the prominence of the broadcast networks.