Viewership & Ad Insights for ABC’s Wednesday Night Comedies
The fall TV season is picking up steam, and on Oct. 21, ABC welcomed back its Wednesday night comedy block with new seasons from black-ish, The Conners and The Goldbergs, with American Housewife returning on Oct. 28.
We dug into some viewership and advertising highlights around those premieres, supplied by Inscape, VIZIO’s data unit with insights from a panel of more than 16 million active and opted-in smart TVs, and iSpot, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company.
Per Inscape, of all the live, linear minutes watched during primetime on Oct. 21, 1.66% of the watch-time went to The Goldbergs, making it No. 8 in the ranking of most-watched shows that evening (it’s worth noting that there were two episodes back-to-back that night, for one hour of airtime vs the usual 30 minutes). The Conners captured 0.80% of watch-time (No. 27) and black-ish had 0.65% (No. 36). American Housewife didn’t make the top 50 primetime shows on Oct. 28.
Inscape also examined viewership crossover for the series. American Housewife viewers are more likely to watch the other three shows: 70% of them also watched at least two minutes of The Goldbergs. The lowest crossover: only 18% of black-ish viewers also tuned into at least two minutes of American Housewife.
Looking at audience location, the local area market of Jackson, TN appeared in the top five for each show based on household tune-in, and there were a few other markets that have overlaps among the shows.
We also took a look at what other shows are most likely to be watched by viewers of these comedies. Notably, these fans are all very loyal to ABC, with series from the broadcaster dominating the lists. In addition, a few shows come up for each set of viewers: Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Holey Moley, General Hospital, Modern Family and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
On the advertising side of things, 64 brands have aired ads across the four shows since they kicked off their seasons, resulting in 288.8 million TV ad impressions. The Goldbergs had the highest impression-count so far, 106.1 million — although it’s aired three episodes compared to two each from The Conners (82.6 million) and black-ish (68.2 million). American Housewife, with only one airing so far, has the fewest impressions (32.1 million).
Google is the only brand that’s aired ads during all four of the shows thus far; its eight airings have resulted in 14.7 million TV ad impressions, making it the most-seen brand across the series. The bulk of Google’s impressions (12 million) came from “Search Near Me,” which was the most-seen spot across the shows.
Here’s a breakdown of the top five most-seen brands for each specific show (not including network promos).
