A significant summer — particularly two weeks and three days of it — played a key role in helping NBC secure the 52-week ratings title for the 2023-24 season.
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| Canadian singer Celine Dion performs on the Eiffel Tower as the conclusion of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26 in Paris. Hector Vivas/Getty Images |
NBC’s primetime broadcasts of the Summer Olympics, which attracted an average of 14 million viewers per night from July 26 to August 11, propelled the network to first place for the full year, spanning from September 25, 2023, to September 22, 2024.
The Olympics, along with other summer programming, allowed NBC to surpass CBS, which had won the traditional September-to-May season.
Factoring in the summer months, which also include the NFL season kickoff, NBC averaged around 4.9 million primetime viewers for the 2023-24 season, beating CBS’s 4.7 million. ABC came in third with 3.9 million viewers, while Fox averaged 2.8 million.
NBC saw a 7 percent increase from the 2022-23 season, with ABC rising by 4 percent. Meanwhile, CBS and Fox experienced declines of 6 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
For the September-to-May period, CBS averaged 5.59 million viewers, followed by NBC with 5.01 million, ABC with 4.29 million, and Fox with 3.35 million.
TV viewership typically drops significantly during the summer, even in an Olympic year, explaining the lower averages for the full year compared to the traditional nine-month season.
In the key advertising demographic of adults aged 18-49, NBC led the 52-week season with a 0.72 rating, equating to about 950,000 viewers in that age group. ABC and CBS both posted a 0.6 rating (approximately 790,000 viewers), while Fox came in with a 0.58 rating (roughly 765,000 viewers).
For the September-to-May period, CBS led with a 0.82 rating, followed by NBC at 0.77, Fox at 0.73, and ABC at 0.66.