Nielsen on Wednesday, December 23, 2020 released the third batch of December 2020 PPM Data for the following markets:
WOW. Check out this video Metro Police released of the #NashvilleBombing https://t.co/FaNdksQF7X
— FoxNashville (@FOXNashville) December 28, 2020
December becomes the deadliest month of the coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/N0F1KlZAZx pic.twitter.com/aLoT7X8IlY
— The Hill (@thehill) December 28, 2020
Liberal media blasted for ignoring the Hunter Biden investigation: “A low point for the media... the press has done a horrible job on this from day one,” says Fox Business host @CGasparino pic.twitter.com/nxbmUG1QwG
— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) December 28, 2020
FINAL: The @packers earn their 12th win of the season! #GoPackGo #TENvsGB
— NFL (@NFL) December 28, 2020
(by @Lexus) pic.twitter.com/5HGJmPb8bN
6 division titles & 7 @NFL playoff berths have been clinched, while Justin Herbert sets the rookie TD passing record and @tkelce sets a new single-season receiving mark for tight ends.
— NFL345 (@NFL345) December 28, 2020
Check out Seven From Sunday - Week 16: https://t.co/aLymdeNumj pic.twitter.com/XCFQl4cr8X
Officials in Nashville say that the individual responsible for the bombing on Christmas Day was an "individual named Anthony Warner" who perished in the explosion pic.twitter.com/1Hn7UhtNA3
— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) December 27, 2020
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| Anthony Q Warner |
In a season that already carries an asterisk because of the pandemic, Fox topped the fall ratings in adults 18-49 (1.4 rating) on the strength of Thursday Night Football and The Masked Singer, while NBC, paced by Sunday Night Football and This Is Us, was the most watched network (6.11 million), according to most current season-to-date rating information from Nielsen
Excluding sports and breaking news, ABC, which does not have NFL football on the fall schedule, ranked as the No. 1 network with entertainment programming (1.0 rating) for the first time in 5 years among adults 18-49 – since the 2015-2016 season — and as the top entertainment network in total viewers (5.1 million) for the first time in 20 years – since the 2000-2001 season, at the height of the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? craze.
All networks were down from fall 2019; ABC’s declines were single-digit in both 19-49 and total viewers; all other broadcasters were off by double digits.
Despite ratings declines, football still dominated fall ratings in 18-49 and total viewers, with NBC’s Sunday Night Football and Fox’s Thursday Night Football ranking as No. 1 and No.2, respectively.
CBS had a strong showing on the list of most watched non-sports fall programs with venerable drama NCIS (12.9 million) at No. 1; 60 Minutes (11.9 million), buoyed by high-profile election-related telecasts and football lead-ins, at No. 2; and FBI (11.0 million) at No. 4. NBC’s This Is Us (11.1 million) took the No. 3 spot.
Meanwhile, Deadline reports the major news networks are touting big ratings gains in 2020, after the coronavirus crisis and the presidential election drove viewers in record numbers to their lineups.
Fox News will finish the year again at top of the news channels in primetime, with an average of 3.6 million viewers, up 45% from the same period the previous year. MSNBC averaged 2.2 million, a boost of 24%. CNN saw an even greater increase, as it was up 85% to average 1.8 million.
After a plethora of streaming competitors launched in 2020, Netflix still added a substantial number of subscribers. As impressive as Netflix’s sustained dominance was Disney+’s ability to quickly gain viewers. These developments show there’s room for multiple services to thrive in this fast-growing market.
But no other new US streaming service had a debut like Disney+ did—eMarketer estimates that it will reach 72.4 million US monthly viewers in 2020, its first full year in service. They forecast that more than one-fifth of the U-S population will use Disney+ this year, and in 2024, more than one-third will. So far, other streaming entrants suffered from distribution limitations, confusing branding, or a lack of quality programming. None of these problems have hampered Disney+, which will become the third most popular US streaming service by the end of 2024.
There is still plenty of time for other streamers to gain adoption. But other recent entrants into the streaming wars will struggle to immediately make a dent in the market, according to eMarketer.
During the pandemic, streaming has been one of few successes for The Walt Disney Co., which has suffered with theme parks and theaters sidelined. The company reorganized its media division to further emphasize streaming. While other media conglomerates are also restructuring their businesses to focus more on streaming, Disney’s pivot is particularly consequential because it operates numerous streamers including Hulu, ESPN+, and its upcoming Star service, named after the India-based media company that Disney acquired. This move will further solidify Disney as a streaming leader alongside stalwarts Netflix and Amazon.
Disney+’s success matters to marketers because it represents streaming services becoming more reliant on subscriptions than on advertising.
Square Inc., the digital-payment company run by Jack Dorsey, has held talks to acquire the music-streaming service Tidal as part of a push to diversify, according to Bloomberg citing a person familiar with the situation.
Dorsey has discussed a potential deal with Jay-Z, the rapper and music mogul who acquired Tidal for $56 million in early 2015, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. The negotiations may not result in a transaction.
Dorsey, meanwhile, has ambitions to build Square into a much broader company made up of stand-alone, complementary services. Square’s two core products, Square Seller and Cash App, already operate somewhat separately within Square Inc., each with its own “lead” on the executive team. It’s believed Dorsey, who spent more than four years on the board of Walt Disney Co., imagines Square will similarly own a collection of businesses under one corporate umbrella.
Tidal’s owners include nearly two dozen high-profile artists, including Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Coldplay, Madonna, Rihanna and others, according to its website. The service is available in 53 countries and offers more than 60 million songs and 250,000 videos.
Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai let slip a Wednesday deadline for setting a vote on the proposal at the next monthly meeting of the agency, which is scheduled for Jan. 13 and is the last before he leaves the commission a week later.
“It appears he has run out of calendar,” said Michael O’Rielly, a former Republican FCC member whose nomination to another term was withdrawn by the White House after O’Rielly voiced doubts about the measure.
FCC proposals not adopted at meetings can be passed with a vote by commissioners behind closed doors. But FCC Democrats oppose the measure and could kill it by delaying the process past the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
Pai has said little about the topic since Oct. 15 when he announced he planned to move forward with a rulemaking on the legal shield, contained in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Will Wiquist, an FCC spokesman, declined Wednesday to comment on the matter.
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| Ajit Pai |
Pai has a three-member Republican majority until he leaves. He could call a special meeting or simply have FCC staff issue an order, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.
An order without a vote by the commissioners wouldn’t carry as much weight before courts as language adopted by a vote, but “even a full FCC declaration might not be given too much weight,” Schwartzman said in an email.
“President Donald Trump’s push for the FCC to make rules about a key liability shield for Twitter, Facebook and Google appears dead, given Chairman Ajit Pai didn’t add the item to a Jan. 13 meeting agenda,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Schettenhelm said in a note Thursday. “With President-elect Joe Biden set to name a new chair in January, the rulemaking won’t advance.”
Pai has said he will leave the FCC on Jan. 20. That would leave the FCC at a 2-to-2 partisan deadlock until the Senate confirms another member selected by Biden. In the meantime, Biden will be able to designate one of the sitting Democrats as chair with control of the agency’s agenda.
A new year means another round of higher TV and Internet prices. Starting Jan. 1, Comcast will hit customers with an extra charge for using too much data, a hike that has become an annual holiday tradition for some of the biggest cable companies, reports FOX Business.
As millions of Americans move online to work from home, stream TV shows or take classes remotely, the Philadelphia-based cable and broadband giant is imposing a 1.2-terabyte data cap to the 39 states where it operates. Comcast, which has 30.1 million total subscribers, told FOX Business that the data cap does not impact 95% of their customers, and unlimited options for more money is part of an offering.
However, the limit can be easily reached for customers who are on daily Zoom meetings and stream shows, according to Fox News’s Brett Larson.
“Of everything you’re doing at home it’s mostly done online,” Larson told FOX Business’ Varney & Company. “And it’s all using up an unknown amount of data that you could end up paying extra for.”
Streaming Netflix’s popular show "The Crown" in 4K resolution takes up an estimated seven gigabytes an hour and 280 gigabytes for the entire season, or over a fourth of a terabyte, according to Larson. Meanwhile, a Zoom call can cost one-and-a-half gigabytes an hour. For two kids taking online classes eight hours a day every week for school tacks on an additional 192 gigabytes each month.
Cord-cutting has reached record highs amid the pandemic, which has sent cable companies scrambling to find new ways to make up for lost revenue.
Other wireless service providers like AT&T, Charter and Verizon do not impose data caps on most of their high-speed Internet services.
As millions of Americans sit in quarantine this year, many people probably feel their entire lives are spent staring at a computer screen. It turns out they may be right. A survey finds the average American will spend the equivalent of 44 years looking at some kind of digital screen. Researchers say this number has only increased since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
The OnePoll survey of 2,000 adults, commissioned by Vision Direct, looked at the average amount of time spent on various devices throughout each day. The results reveal the typical American spends four hours and 30 minutes watching TV, four hours and 33 minutes looking at a smartphone, over three hours using a gaming device, and nearly five hours on a laptop.
All together, Americans are spending a whopping 17 hours and nine minutes looking at digital devices each day, according to the study. Over a full year, that adds up to just over 6,259 hours of total screen time. When to stretch that out over the average 60 years Americans live as adults, you’re looking at 44 years of staring at a screen!
Here’s the real shocking discovery — researchers say those figures are all pre-pandemic! The survey claims since COVID began, Americans are spending over 19 hours a day looking at some type of digital gadget during lockdown. Respondents say most of this extra time to due to boredom. More than three in four adults add they would be lost if they didn’t have their devices during the COVID lockdown.
“We’re lucky to have devices that connect us with the outside world,” says Vision Direct’s Benjamin Dumaine in a statement. “A similar pandemic taking place 30 or 40 years ago would have been people coping with the lack of contact in very different ways.”
The survey find it takes less than 10 minutes for the average American to go from waking up to looking at a screen each morning.
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| Sienna Miller is 39 |