The number of households tuning in to watch regional Spectrum News channels approached 2 million during the month of November, effectuated in part by the news organization’s commitment to covering political campaigns and causes at the local, regional and national levels.
According to data reviewed by The Desk, an average of 1.8 million households watched Spectrum News in seven markets where parent company Charter Communications operates a regional news channel. Those metered markets are New York City (Spectrum News NY1), Los Angeles (Spectrum News 1), Dallas-Fort Worth (Spectrum News 1 Texas), Cleveland (Spectrum News 1 Ohio), Tampa (Bay News 9), Charlotte (Spectrum News 1 North Carolina) and Orlando (Spectrum News 13).
In Cleveland, Spectrum News 1 Ohio outperformed comparable network news programming from CBS News and NBC News, while in Dallas, Spectrum News 1 Texas outperformed similar programming from NBC News and ABC News.
Across all metered markets, Spectrum News channels had higher month-over viewership growth compared to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC, the Nielsen data showed.
Spectrum News counts “viewership” based on streaming and set-top box data that shows a household tuned in to a regional news channel for five consecutive minutes.
November was the first time Spectrum News offered comprehensive prime-time Election Night specials across its regional news channels, some of which was aggregated into Spectrum News Plus, the national free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel available through the Spectrum News app and on Xumo Play. That coverage saw a 30 percent lift in prime-time viewership, besting CNN and Fox in metered markets.
