Ratings & Advertising 2000: What Are Americans Really Watching?!

By Ron Kaufman

"TV sucks, folks. And -- with the exception of 'The Simpsons,' 'Law and Order,' and 'The X-Files' -- I use my television solely as a means to watch DVD's, videos, and porn."

-- Kevin Smith, director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, & Dogma.

What do Americans watch on TV? Well, mostly, a lot of advertising. In fact, a report released in March, 2000 indicated that 1999 saw levels of television "clutter" rise to the highest levels in history. More advertising is being squeezed into every TV newscast, game show, and re-run of Married With Children. This is why ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX are called commercial television networks. They show lots of commercials. Cable networks show commercials, too, but they are usually aimed at keeping you watching television rather than some multinational corporation selling soda or automobiles.

The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and the Association of National Advertisers, Inc. (ANA) released their annual Television Commercial Monitoring Report showing the level of TV clutter. This clutter is defined as "commercial time, public service announcements, public service promotions, promotions aired by broadcast and cable networks, program credits not run over continuing program action, and 'other' unidentified gaps within a commercial pod."

The AAAA report showed that in the primetime slot, non-programming time on network television was 16:43 minutes per hour. The daytime level of advertising was 20:53 minutes per hour. Network news showed 18:53 minutes of commercials per hour and late night news aired 19:06 minutes of ads per hour. The most "cluttered" program in all of TV, according to the report, was ABC's Good Morning America. Ironic, isn't it?

On cable, the Fox Family Channel was the most cluttered with 18:03 minutes of commercials per hour; E! came in second with 17:19 minutes of ads per hour; and MTV was third with 17:19 minutes per hour of clutter.

So when people say, "I watch TV, but I don't watch commercials," that doesn't seem possible. With nearly one-third of all television programming dedicated to advertising and station promotions, American TV is more commercial than ever.

And, not suprising, there are more Americans watching TV than ever. Nielsen Media Research (NMR) estimates that there are 100.8 million TV households in the United States. According to a NMR press release, demographic estimates projected for January, 2000 within U.S. TV households include:

With this many TV sets around, just what are people watching? In 1995, the five top television shows on a regular basis were Seinfeld, 20/20, E.R., Friends, and Home Improvement. Seinfeld would have around 15 million people watching during its primetime airing. The Super Bowl is usually a big draw, with Super Bowl 30 reaching 44 million viewers in January, 1996. Nielsen Media Research is a leader in the area of TV ratings. The NMR web site has a good explanation of what ratings mean and how they are collected. Below are some typical ratings collections for a random week in April, 2000. The shocking number is how many millions and millions of viewers primetime TV channels get on a daily basis.

Though cable-only programs get respectable viewing, they still cannot claim to have even close to the viewing power of the commercial networks. Below are cable ratings from this same time period in April, 2000. Notice that the top rated cable show has about half the viewership of the lowest rated show in the primtime list above.

The pictures above are from the UltimateTV.com web site. This is a great site for following TV ratings and getting a weekly lowdown on what Americans watch each week.

So what does all this mean? Well, that roughly half the population of the country could be classified as a "TV household." That television networks try to pack as many commercials into each hour of programming as possible. This means that TV stations and advertisers have more power than ever. That during a random week in April, 2000, almost 19 million people watched Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on Tuesday night, which is roughly the same number as the population of the states of Nevada or New York or the entire population of Australia. When almost 13 million people watched Friends during this time period, it roughly equals the entire population of Ecuador. And more people usually watch NYPD Blue each week than live in countries of Greece or the Czech Republic.