‘The Bachelor’ is Back: Viewership and Ad Insights For the Premiere
ABC rang in the new year this week with the season 25 premiere of The Bachelor, featuring 28-year-old Matt James, who hails from North Carolina and is the show’s first Black lead. We put together a few highlights from the episode using insights from VIZIO’s Inscape, the TV data company with insights from a panel of more than 17 million active and opted-in smart TVs, and iSpot, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution platform.
Per Inscape, the premiere was the No. 1 show by watch-time for Jan. 4, accounting for 1.49% of all live, linear minutes watched by VIZIO smart TVs. By comparison, the second and third-place shows (Pawn Stars and Las Vegas, respectively) both had marathons that day.
Viewership steadily increased over the course of the two-hour premiere, peaking right before the end.
Top local area markets by tune-in included Meridian, MS; Jackson, TN; Jonesboro, AR; Omaha, NE; and Lafayette, LA.
Inscape also examined crossover between the latest season of The Bachelorette and the season 25 premiere of The Bachelor. An astounding 79% of viewers who watched The Bachelor season premiere had also watched at least 10 minutes of The Bachelorette last fall, while only 23% of Bachelorette viewers tuned into The Bachelor premiere.
Unsurprisingly, Bachelor fans are loyal to the series: 71% of viewers who watched season 24 tuned into the season 25 premiere, although only 36% of season 24 viewers tuned into the premiere.
What other shows are Bachelor fans most likely to watch? ABC series top the list, led by — shocker — The Bachelorette, followed by Dancing With the Stars, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Shark Tank and A Million Little Things.
On the advertising side of things, according to iSpot, The Bachelor premiere generated over 303 million TV ad impressions, with 53 brands airing 70 ads 80 times. The most-seen non-network promo spot was T-Mobile’s “Turning Up the Speed: 5G Network Anthem,” with 7.9 million impressions.
Top brands by impressions included:
1. T-Mobile (15.1 million impressions)
2. Olay (8 million)
3. Allstate (7.8 million)
4. WW (7.5 million)
5. Target (7.5 million)
Notably, of those top five, only T-Mobile and WW advertised during the season 24 premiere of The Bachelor.