Even children are watching less TV as total viewing continues to drop.
According to reports, children are watching less TV. The Bernstein Research shows that audiences have continued to decline.
Thestreet.com revealed that total viewing has declined by 15% and research suggests that more people are watching Netflix and Hulu instead of TV.
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The week's poor performance wasn't isolated bad news. Aggregate audiences are also down quarter-to-date, with a 9% decline in both cable and broadcast audiences. Children's programming has fared even worse, with audiences falling 12% in the past week, and an even steeper 15% drop in quarter-to-date audiences, according to Bernstein. The slipping viewership among young audiences may be because children's programming is particularly vulnerable to competition from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.
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The biggest issue is that children and young adults are less interested in seeing the newest episode of their favorite TV series and instead would rather watch re-runs which is crippling children's TV channels.
Nickelodeon and Disney Channel viewership fell 25% and 24% respectively, according to the Bernstein report. “For kids' programming it's a unique audience. They're not loyal to any network or channel. It's platform-agnostic,” said Amy Yong, an analyst at Macquarie Capital USA Inc.
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Fox was one of the few TV networks that actually increased in viewers by 11%. This was partly due to the Fox News channel and their coverage of Ferguson, Mo. and the grand jury ruling against the indictment of Officer Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed an unarmed teenager Michael Brown.
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