Basketball, ‘SVU’ Lead Last Week’s TV Watch-Time
Welcome to our weekly snapshot of TV by the numbers, highlighting the most-watched shows and networks for February 26 through March 3, with insights from Inscape, the currency-grade smart TV ACR data provider and data technology division of Vizio. 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).
Men’s college basketball remains in first place on the ranking, but saw a slight decrease in viewership share week-over-week, down a smidge from 2.43% to 2.28%. With March Madness rapidly approaching, that share will in all likelihood skyrocket: Last year, the first week of the men’s tournament captured nearly 10% of watch-time. The NBA, meanwhile, increased its viewership share from 1.35% to 2.05% and stays at No. 2.
A few more insights about the top programming on TV:
Elsewhere in sports, PGA Tour golf moves from No. 22 to No. 18 (0.53%), while women’s college basketball increased watch-time from 0.48% to 0.51% and takes No. 19.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit takes third place with 1.23% of minutes watched, driven by rerun marathons on USA and ION, plus a new episode on NBC.
Several morning shows made inroads compared to the previous week: Today moves from sixth to fourth place and grew its share from 0.88% to 0.90%, while Good Morning America takes No. 6 with 0.80%, up from No. 7 and 0.77% previously. CBS Mornings rises from No. 17 to No. 15 with 0.56% of watch-time (up from 0.53%).
The week-over-week ranking newcomers were both news programs: NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt moves from No. 27 to No. 24, while Jesse Watters Primetime lands at No. 25, up from No. 30 previously.
Check out the ranking of most-watched TV networks on the Measure.
