Nielsen data show that Pittsburghers love their TV
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — What are Pittsburghers watching on TV and how do local viewing habits compare nationally?
Kelly Abcarian, senior vice president of product leadership at Nielsen, said in August at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that Pittsburgh has strong live TV viewership compared with other markets and strong local TV newsviewership, too.
This isn’t a huge surprise given the competitiveness of the local TV news ratings race. A Nielsen Local Watch report released last month found Pittsburgh was the top local people meter market for local TV news viewing in the United States. The report examined TV viewership in markets across the country during the first quarter of 2017.
The average weekly reach of local TV news in Pittsburgh was 55.9 percent of TV viewers ages 18 and up. (St. Louis was second at 54.7 percent and Cleveland third at 52.5 percent.)
Pittsburghers ages 18 and up spent an average of 3 hours, 23 minutes watching local news weekly (1 hour, 50 minutes for national broadcast news; 2 hours, 33 minutes for cable news).
Pittsburghers ages 25-54 also are more likely to watch live TV (4 hours, 28 minutes daily) compared with viewers in Philadelphia (4 hours, 21 minutes), New York (3 hours, 50 minutes), Phoenix (3 hours, 7 minutes ) or San Francisco (2 hours, 39 minutes). (The national
average is 3 hours, 30 minutes daily.)
In year-to-year comparisons, Pittsburghers ages 2554 watched slightly less live TV daily in February 2017 than they did in February 2016 (4 hours, 28 minutes compared with 4 hours, 43 minutes) and time-shifted viewing grew slightly (52 minutes compared with 47 minutes). The biggest growth was in time spent with a multimedia device (17 minutes compared with 8 minutes).
Prime-time ratings
A snapshot from the week of Oct. 2 finds Pittsburghers, perhaps surprisingly, chose six scripted series over NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” among most-watched prime-time programming.
Less surprising, Pittsburgh-set “This Is Us” performed better locally than it did nationally.
Here are the Pittsburgh rankings for viewers ages 2 and older (with live plus same-day ratings in parentheses):
1. “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS) (9.5) 2. “NCIS” (CBS) (8.2) 3. “This Is Us” (NBC) (7.8) 4. Fox NFL Sunday Game overrun (6.7)
5. “Blue Bloods” (CBS) (6.4)
5. NHL: St. Louis at Pittsburgh (NBCSN) (6.4) 7. “9JKL” (CBS) (6.2) 8. “Bull” (CBS) (5.9) 9. “60 Minutes” (CBS) (5.8) 10. “NBC Sunday Night Football” (5.7)
10. “The Good Doctor” (ABC) (5.7)
And here’s the lineup nationally:
1. “NBC Sunday Night Football” (5.4)
2. “CBS Thursday Night Football” (5.1)
3. “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS) (4.6) 4. “NCIS” (CBS) (4.4) 5. “The OT” (Fox) (4.2) 6. “Sunday Night Football Pre-kickoff” (NBC) (4.1) 7. “This Is Us” (3.6) 7. “The Good Doctor” (3.6) 7. “The Voice” (3.6) 10. “Bull” (3.5)
Nielsen and the future
Ms. Abcarian noted Nielsen now has a presence in Pittsburgh with the acquisition early this year of the Shadyside tech company Rhiza, which provides media and consumer analytics software.
“I think we’ll look to evolve that office,” she said. “Who wouldn’t want to get Carnegie Mellon talent coming out of there and evolve the way you bring data together, bring tech together and help grow this industry.”
Next year Nielsen is expected to add the measurement of out-of-home viewing (in bars, hotels, restaurants, offices, etc.) to its ratings service, including in ratings for the Pittsburgh market.
Just this week eight networks and/or studios signed up to buy a new Nielsen product that measures viewership of shows on streaming services, including programming on Netflix.
And Variety reports a group of cable and broadcast TV networks are developing a method of ratings not associated with Nielsen using “attribution modeling” — an attempt to help advertisers tie their commercials to proof of sales of products/services.
Kept/canceled
PBS’s “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” produced by Pittsburgh’s The Fred Rogers Co., has been renewed for a 20-episode fourth season that will begin airing next summer.
CBS ordered a full first season of the military drama “SEAL Team.”
NBC canceled “The Night Shift” after four seasons.
E! canceled “Fashion Police,” which will air its final episode at 8 p.m. Nov. 27.
Netflix canceled Chelsea Handler’s streaming talk show after two seasons.
Channel surfing
Shemar Moore will return to guest star on CBS’s “Criminal Minds” (10 p.m. Wednesday). … Ovation will air the 18-episode 11th season of Canadian import “The Artful Detective” (aka “Murdoch’s Mysteries”) beginning in January. … Disney Channel’s new animated series “Vampirina” (11 a.m. daily) features songs written by Thornburg native Christopher Dimond (a 1997 Bishop Canevin High School grad) and writing partner Michael Kooman, who is from Altoona. … Mt. Lebanon native Mark Cuban will be the guest on Harvey Levin’s “OBJECTified” (8 p.m. Sunday, Fox News Channel).
Tuned In online
Today’s TV Q&A column responds to questions about “This Is Us,” “Salvation” and “Megyn Kelly Today.” This week’s Tuned In Journal includes posts on “Mission Force One.” Read online-only TV content at http://communityvoices.post-gazette.com/ arts-entertainment-living/ tuned-in.