Embracing the Windy City

Top 10 Local TV Markets

NYC, LA, and Chicago retain their positions as the top 3 largest television markets by average audience this week. It was also a big week for local television networks on social media, with the Los Angeles market dominating in all three core social metrics.

Local TV - Top Telecasts in Chicago, IL: Broadcast Networks

Key Insights: Chicago took a break from regularly scheduled programming to support the Bears this week.

• Weekday telecasts performed the best in Chicago this week, with those airing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all earning two places in the top ten ranking.
• The Chicago Bears’ preseason game on WLS earned an average audience nearly 19% higher than the next highest ranked broadcast telecast, following the nationwide trend of Sports TV dominance as the NFL returns.

Local TV - Top Telecasts in Chicago, IL: Cable Networks

Key Insights: Chicago residents' viewing habits followed the lead of the other large markets in the United States this week, as football and prominent political commentary shows maintain a healthy lead.

• The Chicago Bears Thursday evening preseason game earned the number one rank on cable networks as well, with the ESPN telecast earning a rating twice that of the second highest ranked telecast in the period.
• FOX News Channel earned high rankings across all metrics, as their popular political commentary series continued to rank ahead of all other cable news networks in this period.

Chicago Residents Show Off Their Skyline

Key Insights: Chicago networks showed off their city this week on social, leading to dramatic views and high engagement.

Cross-Platform metrics across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter:

• 2.7M video views
• 870K social actions
• 85K shares
• 6K pieces of content
• 11k video shares

Definitions & Methodology

• Cable Television - a system in which television programs are transmitted to the sets of subscribers by cable rather than by a broadcast signal and usually is a paid subscription.
• Broadcast Network Television - free, over-the-air broadcast television networks and local television stations (whether digital or otherwise) in the United States that are licensed by the FCC, regardless of whether a viewer accesses the signal of such networks or stations over-the-air or through other means.
• Average Audience (AA) – Average number of TVs tuned to an entity throughout the selected time frame
• Households (HH) – Number of unique households reporting at least one minute of viewing for the selected time frame and classification (telecast, network, etc.)
• Share (SH) – The average audience of a particular program relative to the total average audience across all programming during the same time frame. Calculated by dividing the avg. audience of a telecast and/or network by the avg. audience over all telecasts airing at the same time (x100)
• Rating (RTG) – The percentage of the household universe that viewed the classification (network, telecast, ad, etc.). Calculated by dividing AA by the total TV households in the selected market(s)
• Hours Viewed per Household (Hrs/V-HH) – Average hours viewed per household during the selected time frame
• Video Views (Cross-Platform) – Total video views across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
• Actions (Cross-Platform) – Total number of actions (reactions, shares, comments, retweets, favorites, loves) the specified property receives during the defined time period across the combined space of Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
• Shares (Cross-Platform) - The total number of time the specific property’s posts were shared on Facebook or Retweeted on Twitter during the defined time period.