Comcast (CMCSA): NBC's Record Nielsen Run Ends At 21 Days

Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) -owned NBC lost its historic run of 21 successive wins of Nielsen nightly ratings after rival CBC Corporation’s (NYSE:CBS) broadcast of NFL exhibition game between Cleveland and Tampa Bay. Notably, this was its longest streak of topping viewership charts since Nielsen started keeping more accurate records in 1987.

Drivers behind the Feat

NBC's winning streak was mainly driven by the broadcast of Summer Olympics in Rio. However, popular shows like ‘America’s Got Talent’ and ‘American Ninja Warrior’ have also attracted high viewership in the summer months. Specifically, last week's broadcast of ‘America's Got Talent’ topped individual show ratings, coming just ahead of ‘60 Minutes’ which is broadcasted by CBS. Meanwhile, NBC led news broadcasting ratings too, with 7.8 million viewers of ‘Nightly News’, just ahead of American Broadcasting Company’s (ABC) ‘World News Tonight’, which had total viewership of 7.7 million. Notably, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) . CBS’s offering of ‘CBS Evening News’ ranked third, with 6.4 millions viewers.

CBS Still the King

CBS has been dominating the traditional television season in the U.S. between September and May. Traditional broadcasting is far more important to advertisers than the summer season. This is something that NBC should focus on to consolidate its ratings in the future. Additionally, in the basic cable and satellite channel category, 21 Century Fox’s (NASDAQ:FOX) Fox News ruled over others with 2.1 million viewers, followed by Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNI) HDTV's 1.67 million viewers. Comcast-owned USA Network came in third with 1.57 million viewers.

Comcast presently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold)

Confidential from Zacks

Beyond this Analyst Blog, would you like to see Zacks' best recommendations that are not available to the public? Our Executive VP, Steve Reitmeister, knows when key trades are about to be triggered and which of our experts has the hottest hand. Click to see them now>>