Multicast television networks are commanding a higher share of overall TV viewing in America each month, with digital channels like MeTV, Comet, Charge!, TBD and others drawing a larger portion of broadcast TV eyeballs and keeping free, ad-supported streaming TV platforms at bay.
According to Nielsen data shared with The Desk, over-the-air multicast TV networks accounted for 4.4 percent of all TV viewing in the latest measurement period, which spanned from late October to mid-November. Collectively, multicast networks had around one-sixth of all time spent with broadcast TV last month, which captured 23.7 percent of total TV time in American households.
Streaming services, as a whole, continue to be the dominant way that Americans watch TV — but the number becomes a bit closer to broadcast and cable when the dominant player, YouTube, is factored out. Excluding YouTube, streaming platforms had 30.8 percent of all time spent with TV; free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) platforms, collectively, accounted for 4.6 percent of all time spent with TV.
FAST platforms have grown in popularity over the months as Americans sample different services and incorporate more free and low-cost, ad-supported options into their TV diets, largely to offset price increases by bigger streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus.
Multicast networks are benefitting from a similar trend: As Americans look for cheaper streaming options, they’re buying more antennas to watch free, over-the-air network programming, local news and sports — and they’re finding there are more channels on free broadcast TV than ever before.
“There’s more multicast options out there, and it just takes a while for viewers to discover them,” Jon Marks, the Chief Research Officer of multicast broadcaster Free TV Networks, told The Desk in an interview. “If you have an antenna, from time to time, you need to rescan, and when you do, you’ll usually see there are additional channels that are available to watch.”
Multicast networks benefit from their proximity to major network affiliates, including those that carry programming from ABC, CBS, CW Network, Fox and NBC. When viewers channel surf, they inevitably stumble upon networks like MeTV, Comet, Charge!, Defy TV, The365, Ion and TBD, most of which offer programs that viewers are already familiar with and are willing to watch for a few hours each day.
Marks acknowledged that multicast networks tend to rely heavily on acquired content that consists of older programs, but said the trend is no different from when cable networks like TBS, TNT and USA Network started in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
“Over time, as their business grew, they were able to secure more contemporary TV rights,” Marks said.
That is already starting to happen on some multicast networks, including Sinclair-owned TBD, which has added fresher shows like “Key & Peele” and “Saturday Night Live,” edited for content and time on broadcast TV.
Multicast has also become a destination for live sports: Over the past two years, the E. W. Scripps Company has made a major push to increase its output of Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and Major League Soccer (MLS) games on its Ion TV network. Last month, data shared by the broadcaster showed NWSL broadcasts on Ion reached 13 million unique viewers on an exclusive basis during its most-recent season (overall, NWSL programming on Scripps Sports reached 20 million viewers), and millions more tuned in to watch WNBA games aired by the network on Friday evenings.
This comes as no surprise to Adam Ware, Sinclair’s Senior Vice President of Growth Networks, who is in charge of the company’s portfolio of four multicast networks — TBD, Comet, Charge! and The Nest. In an interview last month, Ware said multicast networks differentiate themselves from other free offerings, including FAST channels, because broadcasters brand and program them like any other broadcast or cable network — and that is attractive to audiences who are looking for free access to good TV shows and movies, and who want an experience that feels familiar to regular TV.
Ware acknowledged that linear FAST channels are having a moment, both because of the sheer number of options on services like Tubi, Pluto TV and Xumo Play and the hype surrounding them. And he commended FAST programmers for figuring out how to take video on-demand content and deliver shows in a way that allows viewers to tune in and lean back. But the similarities between FAST and typitcal TV end there.
“Yes, there is a ton of viewing [on FAST], but it’s not really linear viewing in the same way that cable, traditional cable networks were linear viewing,” Ware said. “It’s a playlist. It’s not really a channel.”
Multicast networks come closer to the style of a traditional broadcast or cable TV channel: Programs start and stop at the top and bottom of every hour, with ad breaks that are no fewer or frequent than what are on other channels, and shows are programmed to reach certain audiences during different parts of the day.
Executives behind those networks, including Marks and Ware, have also spent a considerable amount of time developing brand identities that viewers understand and can relate to. Outlaw, operated by Free TV Networks, caters to fans of country western shows and movies, and brands itself accordingly; Comet, operated by Sinclair, targets fans of science-fiction and fantasy series, and super-serves its audience through the annual CometFest event.
Ware says FAST channels generate a lot of buzz because the companies behind some of the larger ones have done an effective job in marketing them as a “thing,” and reporters tend to characterize the war for TV attention as “streaming up, broadcast down.”
But the data doesn’t support that thinking: The Nielsen ratings prove that, when adjusting for certain factors (like the exclusion of YouTube), broadcast, cable and streaming platforms have a closer and more-equitable share of TV time than might be realized upon first glance.
On a granular level, multicast networks are holding their own against FAST platforms, and as a higher percentage of the TV audience moves away from expensive subscription cable plans and streaming services, multicast’s share of the market is almost certainly going to go up.
