November 28, 2023 by Mitch Metcalf
Thanksgiving Day remains a rare bright spot for broadcasting in America, with families and friends gathering together on a national holiday steeped in traditions, often involving television. The NFL tripleheader and NBC’s holiday specials were the most watched shows of the day, with five out of six
programs exceeding 20 million viewers in an average minute. NBC added a half hour to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Period by starting it earlier at 8:30am. A larger audience delivery across a longer time period produces very happy and helpful advertisers and network programmers.
11/23/2023: Top Programs Persons 2+ Live+Same Day
41.8M CBS 4:36pm NFL Washington at Dallas
33.7M FOX 12:36pm NFL Green Bay at Detroit
24.8M NBC 8:23pm NFL San Francisco at Seattle
22.0M NBC 8:30am Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
20.9M CBS 4:00pm NFL Today
11.3M NBC 12:00pm National Dog Show
Last year produced nearly identical results across the board, with no evidence of linear TV erosion that we see on virtually every other day of the year. FOX received the bounty of the late afternoon game in Dallas last year, as CBS and FOX alternate who televises the early game in Detroit.
11/24/2022: Top Programs Persons 2+ Live+Same Day (Thanksgiving last year)
42.1M FOX 4:46pm NFL NY Giants at Dallas
31.8M CBS 12:35pm NFL Buffalo at Detroit
24.8M NBC 8:24pm NFL New England at Minnesota
22.6M FOX 4:03pm NFL Pregame
21.7M NBC 9:00am Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
10.9M CBS 12:00pm NFL Today
10.8M NBC 12:00pm National Dog Show
ABC is the lone significant broadcast network without a piece of the Thanksgiving pie, but the network’s time to shine on a national holiday comes soon with Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, another institution that dominates a big night with deeply ingrained viewer habits.
Keep coming back to this space for coverage of these exciting times in our business. If you find this post of interest, we encourage you to share the post on other social channels (share buttons below). If you want to be notified when there is a new post, please subscribe to join our mailing list.
Interested in deeper insights? If you or your company is interested in purchasing access to MEI’s exclusive analysis of Nielsen TV ratings and streaming data, please reach out by clicking below.
Comments