Commercial Loads Rose in November

The commercial loads in TV shows rose slightly in November, according to an analysis of Nielsen data by analyst Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research Group.

The gains come after the heads of several media companies, including 21st Century Fox, Time Warner and Viacom have said that they intend to take steps to reduce the amount of commercials in their programming.

According to Wieser, commercials accounted for 19.5% of total day programming minutes in broadcast, cable and syndication during November, up from 19.3% in November 2014. Wieser notes that commercial loads increased more in October from a year earlier.

During primetime, commercials accounted for 19.8% of programming in November, compared to 19.7% a year ago.

Looking at viewing based on ratings for live viewing plus seven days of playback (L7), Wieser says that viewing through TV sets was down 1.5% among all viewers and down 3% among adults 18 to 49. Among younger people—ages 2-17—viewing was down 8.5%. Networks owned by Disney and Viacom, which account for a third of the viewing by those younger people, registered viewing declines of 16.8% and 9.8% in the month.

Wieser says that viewing on TV sets of content that wasn’t assigned to specific networks, accounted for 23% of viewing, up 1% from a year ago. That included increases by internet-connected devices and viewing via video-game consoles—both of which deliver OTT service-based video.

(Photo via Pictures of Money's FlickrImage taken on Sept. 17, 2015 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 3x4 aspect ratio.)

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.