Nielsen Cable Coverage Estimates

  According to Nielsen as of the May cable universe coverage estimates ESPN is in 2.58 million more homes in the USA than NBC Sports Network. **DO THESE NUMBERS INCLUDE STREAMING SERVICES LIKE SlingTV, Vue and DirecTV Now?** Yes, Nielsen currently counts 2.9 million homes that access exclusively through OTT services like Vue, YouTube TV, etc. In the aggregate those services may have a few more subscribers that aren’t counted…

To answer the question in the headline: according to Nielsen as of the April cable universe coverage estimates ESPN is in 2.536 million more homes in the USA than NBC Sports Network. Frequent readers of this post will note I had to change my headlining scheme because NBCSN surpassed FS1 in coverage.That was true last month too but I missed it. I apologize, NBC Sports! **DO THESE NUMBERS INCLUDE STREAMING…

To answer the question in the headline, according to Nielsen, as of the March cable universe coverage estimates ESPN is in 3.02 million more homes in the USA than FS1. **DO THESE NUMBERS INCLUDE STREAMING SERVICES LIKE SlingTV, Vue and DirecTV Now?** In the past that was a simple question to answer. The answer was “no.” Some people didn’t like it but it was simple! December 2016 was the last…

All of the cable coverage data for the measured networks is below, but to answer the question in the headline since the last time I posted in December, in the January estimates ESPN was in 2.707 million more homes than FS1 and in the February estimates ESPN is in 2.925 million more homes than FS1. But while Fox Sports 1 shed another 328,000 households from January to February (compared to ESPN’s…

  **DO THESE NUMBERS INCLUDE STREAMING SERVICES LIKE SlingTV, Vue and DirecTV Now?** In the past that was a simple question to answer. The answer was “no.” Some people didn’t like it but it was simple! December was the last month that was the case though. Starting with the January estimates the answer changed to “Yes….kind of.” I applaud Nielsen for  plowing ahead though I don’t know that I’d have…

**DO THESE NUMBERS INCLUDE STREAMING SERVICES LIKE SlingTV, Vue and DirecTV Now?** In the past that was a simple question to answer. The answer was “no.” Some people didn’t like it but it was simple! December was the last month that was the case though. Starting with the January estimates the answer changed to “Yes….kind of.” I applaud Nielsen for  plowing ahead though I don’t know that I’d have gone…

Nielsen typically updates its universe estimates in late August/early September for the coming TV season, so I wanted to post the last set of cable coverage estimates under the current estimates. I plan on posting the first set of #s under the new universe estimates in late August or early September. **DO THESE NUMBERS INCLUDE STREAMING SERVICES LIKE SlingTV, Vue and DirecTV Now?** In the past that was a simple…

It’s always better to view these numbers over time as a directional trend than to take any one particular month seriously, but the trend is down, down, down and March was no exception. March outliers: NBCSN gaining a million+ households. This is probably because of the new deal w/DirecTV though per Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand, that was to have added about 3 million homes so keep your eye out…