Viewership and Ad Insights for ‘Superman & Lois,’ Plus More From The CW’s Arrowverse
The CW launched its latest series for the Arrowverse, Superman & Lois, starring Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch, with a two-hour premiere on Feb. 23. Today, we’re bringing you a look at viewership trends around the debut, plus some insights on other Arrowverse shows and The CW itself, via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 17 million active and opted-in smart TVs. We’re also sharing some advertising data from iSpot, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company.
First, a look at the Superman & Lois premiere: Of all the live, linear minutes watched during primetime on the night of the premiere, 0.97% was spent on Superman & Lois, putting it at No. 20 for watch-time that evening across all broadcast and cable networks tracked.
The show was the biggest draw for The CW for the day, with minute-by-minute tune-in peaking at 9:17pm ET.
The top local area markets for tune-in for the premiere included Evansville, IN; Los Angeles, CA; Myrtle Beach-Florence, SC; Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk, IL; and Philadelphia, PA. This is a bit of a deviation from the top markets for The CW in general, which include Los Angeles, CA; Buffalo, NY; Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA; Pittsburgh, PA; and St. Louis, MO.
The CW has a passionate fanbase, so it’s worth asking: Are viewers of one Arrowverse show more likely to watch others? Inscape examined viewership crossover for the last year among Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman and Superman & Lois. Some key findings:
- At the high end of crossover: 61% of Legends of Tomorrow viewers tuned into at least ten minutes of The Flash.
- At the low end: Only 2.8% of Arrow fans watched the Superman & Lois premiere.
- People who checked out the Superman & Lois premiere were most likely to have also watched at least 10 minutes of Batwoman (30%).
- Of the Supergirl audience, 49% have also tuned into Batwoman.
When it comes to other programming likely to be watched by Arrowverse viewers, Maury, Blindspot, The People’s Court, MacGyver and Mike & Molly are among the top shows. But looking at The CW audience in general, top shows include Judge Judy, Let’s Make a Deal, 9-1-1: Lone Star, 9-1-1 and The Price Is Right.
In terms of networks, viewers of The CW are most likely to also be watching the big four broadcast networks, as well as USA, TBS, TNT and PBS.
On the advertising side of things, according to iSpot, the Superman & Lois premiere generated 38.6 million TV ad impressions, with 45 brands airing 63 spots 78 times. Excluding network promos, the most-seen brands included:
- Taco Bell (2 million TV ad impressions)
- Mountain Dew (1.7 million)
- Progressive (1.5 million)
- H&R Block (1.4 million)
- Subway (1.2 million)
The most-seen spot with 1.4 million impressions was H&R Block’s “File Virtually,” while Colgate’s “Confident,” featuring Brooke Shields, was No. 2 (1.2 million). According to an iSpot Ace Metrix survey, this Colgate ad performed above the norm for all industries in the last 90 days for relevance, desire and information, and 31% of survey respondents said the product itself was the single best thing about the commercial.
As Batwoman is the Arrowverse show most likely to be watched by Superman & Lois viewers, we also looked into the advertising trends around its current season. So far there have been five episodes that have generated 92.7 million TV ad impressions. As you may expect, there’s some overlap with Superman & Lois when it comes to the most-seen brands:
- Domino’s (5.4 million TV ad impressions)
- Progressive (4.6 million)
- Taco Bell (4.1 million)
- Liberty Mutual (3.4 million)
- H&R Block (3.4 million)
Finally, here are the top five brands, ranked by impressions, that have aired ads on The CW so far this year, excluding network promos:
- Domino’s (91.1 million TV ad impressions)
- Progressive (83.7 million)
- Geico (65.9 million)
- Liberty Mutual (55.8 million)
- Taco Bell (45.3 million)