According to the Standard Media Index, USA national television ad revenues fell 12.8% to USD 3.78 billion in March, during which restrictions began to be out in place as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first quarter of 2020 sunk 5.4% to USD 10.8 million due to forced cancellations from TV marketers. Broadcast TV ad revenue also fell by 19% in March to USD 1.16 billion, compared to a year ago. SMI said the main reason for the drop is the loss of live sports programming, which began to disappear on 11 March. Cable TV ad revenues dropped 10.9% to USD 2.4 billion. The March drop left first quarter national ad revenue down 54% to USD 10.84 billion, according to SMI. Syndication was up 15% to USD 181 million in March.
ViacomCBS’s CBS and AT&T Turner were significantly impacted by the loss of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Last year, the 67-game tournament generated USD 648 million. The loss of the tournament left CBS’s ad revenue down 48.1% at USD 283.6 million. Looking at entertainment shows only, CBS’s ad revenue was up 6%. NBC’s ad revenue was down 7.6% but led all broadcasters with USD 317.8 million in ad revenue during March. Fox increased by 3.6% for the month and The Walt Disney Co.'s ABC edged up by 2.6%.
Even without live sports, cable TV networks, such as ESPN in March, increased by 2.7% to USD 166 million, leading the rest. But Turner’s TNT and TBS, which airs the March Madness NCAA men’s basketball tournament, took a big hit. TBS sank 59% to USD 92.5 million, which is a fourth-place among all broadcast networks and TNT was in third place, 29% down to $97 million. However, CNN’s ad revenue was 18.7% higher, reaching nearly USD 72 million in seventh place. CNN has seen a massive spike in viewership, some of the highest-percentage viewing gains for any network. Fox News Channel posted a 4.8% increase, which is a gain of about USD 78 million for the month, coming in sixth place. MSNBC declined by 4.3%, to USD 36.6 million.
The largest non-sports, non-news channel was Discovery’s HGTV, which saw a decline of 5.9%, with just under USD 100 million. It stayed in second place among the rest of cable TV networks after ESPN. Broadcast TV was down 4% to USD 4.24 billion during the first quarter, cable TV sunk by 7.3% to USD 6.16 billion, while syndication rose 7.1% to USD 435 million. Many of the changes in the national TV market took place in the last three weeks of March. Even without the NCAA Tournament, CBS remained the top broadcast network for national TV advertising, up 3.2% to USD 478.9 million in ad revenue. CBS was the only broadcast network to see gains through the first quarter. A major factor of the high results was the overall higher political advertising for all TV during the first three months of the year. ESPN increased by 6.7% to USD 587.3 million, HGTV was in second place, down 3.8% to USD 244.3 million.SMI’s primary data comes from the original invoices from the media agency’s holding groups, five of the top seven groups, making up 70% of the national TV market.
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