2020-03-26 The Hollywood Reporter

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 14 MARCH 26, 2020

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Behind the Headlines

The Report

Comedy rules, dystopian’s out for U.S. adults stuck at home as a new survey parses who’s watching what

What Americans Say They’re Watching While Self-Isolating

THR/Morning Consult Poll

Audiences return to Friday and Saturday nights amid a crisis, while network staples

lift across the board and broadcast news hits decade highs BY RICK PORTER

W

ith the coronavirus pandemic

keeping millions of people at

home, TV use has spiked, with

figures from Nielsen showing rises across

all demographics. Kids and teenagers, home

from school, are posting the largest percent-

age gains. Nightly usage levels, which typically

tail off on Fridays and Saturdays, have been

steadier on those days in recent weeks.

Traditional TV viewing, as measured by

Nielsen’s households and persons using its

television metric, was up 4 percent across

all dayparts the week of March 9, with bigger

increases during daytime hours given the

larger share of the population staying home.

The biggest gains came from young view-

ers who were at home rather than school:

Kids ages 2 to 11 increased their TV use by

14 percent, and 12- to 17-year-olds watched

18 percent more. Usage among adults, mean-

while, was up 5 percent overall. During the

week of March 16, usage increased even

more, says Peter Katsingris, senior vp audi-

ence insights at Nielsen: “We saw a 14 percent

increase in Live TV usage from the prior week,

a 35 percent increase in game console usage

and a 28 percent increase in connected device

usage among all U.S. consumers.”

In primetime, the gains have lifted all types

of shows, from ABC’s Modern Family to CBS’

How Big Is the TV Spike?

Depends Who’s Watching

by 77 percent, and MSNBC was up 38 percent

year-over-year — and had its most watched

week ever, averaging 1.64 million viewers.

Streaming data is notoriously hard to come

by, but Nielsen’s figures say use of internet-

connected devices — the Rokus and Apple TVs

of the world — jumped 10 percent in the week

of March 9. Part of that is people watching

linear TV through a connected device, but it’s

also likely reflective of a rise for Netflix, Hulu

and other streaming platforms.

HBO reports that from March 14 to

March 23, use of its HBO Now platform

rose 40 percent over its previous four-week

average. That jump is driven by the debut of

Westworl d, but the WarnerMedia outlet also

notes that past shows like Euphoria (which

doubled), Game of Thrones, His Dark Materials

and Chernobyl rose by 50 percent or more.

Whether the trend sustains over time as

networks and streamers run low on inven-

tory remains to be seen. For now, though,

the gains are pretty much across the board.

“With the abundance of choices available

to them, consumers are turning to what

works,” says Katsingris. “It seems they aren’t

engaging with one platform, but really with

all the platforms.”

Source: THR/Morning Consult poll conducted among a nationally representative sample of 2,200 adults March 19-21. Respondents were asked the question “Are you more or less likely to watch the movies or TV shows in the following genres due to the coronavirus outbreak?”

70%

56%

45%

35%

63%

53%

45%

34%

20%

58%

49%

41%

31%

15%

Comedy Drama Doc. Sci-fi/

Fantasy

Action/ Romance Reality Biopic

Adventure

Thriller/

Mystery

Science/

Nature

Food/

Travel

Horror Musical Dystopian

Optimal price that Americans say they would pay to stream

a movie that would normally be playing in movie theaters.

(NBCUniversal plans to forgo theaters and release its sequel

Trolls World Tour on demand for $20 on April 10.)

The percentage of U.S. adults who say they’re now more

likely to rent movies while staying at home. However, perhaps

because of economic insecurity, another 35 percent of

respondents say they’d be less likely to rent movies now.

Survivor to AMC’s The Walking Dead. Viewing

levels night-to-night have also been more con-

sistent in recent days than they usually are.

N BC ’s Chicago Fire and Chicago Med reached

their biggest audiences in more than a year on

March 18, with 9 million and 9.2 million view-

ers, respectively.

News programming has skyrocketed: ABC’s

World News Tonight (12.55 million nightly

viewers) and NBC’s Nightly News (12.01 mi l-

lion) were the top two shows across all of

television from March 16 to March 22, hitting

viewer figures not seen since the early 2000s.

CBS’ Evening News also grew substantially, to

7.6 million viewers; the three network news-

casts were collectively up 42 percent over

the same week in 2019. Cable news has seen

similar growth. CNN’s total-day audience the

week of March 16 to March 22 was double that

of the same week last year. Fox News increased

TRADITIONAL TV TOTAL TV USAGE (ALL DEVICES)

Viewership Rise in March

Kids

+11%

+14%

Teens

+11%

+18%

Adults

+5% +4%

Source: Nielsen (March 2-15)

NBC’s Chicago Fire and its counterpart Chicago Med both

posted multiyear viewership highs in March.

40% $

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