A18-49+ Update: The Network Race in 2018-19

Here's a look from several angles at how the big five networks fared in 2018-19.

Networks Compared to Previous Seasons

Year	ABC	CBS	NBC	Fox	CW
2016-17	98	100	111	88	40
2017-18	98	99	110	91	38
2018-19	95	97	109	100	32

As Fox proclaimed its desire to move away from scripted programming, it just so happened to have one of its best seasons for scripted programming. Throw in winter sensation The Masked Singer and Fox picked up nine Plus points and had its highest network average in six years. That came at the expense of every other big four network, as they all took relatively small drops but still hit multi-year lows (lowest in six years for ABC, in 11 years for CBS and in three years for NBC).

The biggest drop of all came on the CW, which didn't quite get to the depths of the Dawn Ostroff era but was a lot closer to that than they to the heights of the superhero years. Some (but far from all) of that can certainly be attributed to adding a new night; airing nothing on Sunday and the Sunday lineup on Friday would've been a lot better for the average.

Networks Across the Season

Last year:

sub	ABC	CBS	NBC	Fox
fall	93	106	129	93
winter	103	100	113	102
spring	100	88	91	81

This year:

sub	ABC	CBS	NBC	Fox
fall	88	107	123	114
winter	109	97	118	107
spring	92	85	88	79

This table uses the full-season league average in all three sections of the season used for Schedules Plus: "fall" is everything up to December 31, "winter" is January 1 up to the start of DST, and "spring" is the start of DST to the end of the regular season.

Fox's biggest breakout period was the fall, riding the strongest weeks of the Last Man Standing breakout and also bringing in 9-1-1 and The Resident (which debuted in the winter last year). The winter was just generally good for almost everyone, riding a ton of big reality; Fox was still able to grow y2y thanks to The Masked Singer, NBC had America's Got Talent: The Champions and The Titan Games, and ABC had an extraordinary The Bachelor season. But everyone sort of ran out of steam by the spring; all four nets were down from last spring's average, most noticeably ABC which lost its Roseanne comparisons.

A Deeper Look at Networks

Last year:

Type	ABC	CBS	NBC	Fox
Overall	97	103	161	100
Original Series	98	99	110	91
Non-Series	95	113	234	114
Scripted	97	96	99	94
Comedy	124	130	89	86
Drama	85	86	101	98
Unscripted	100	106	123	78
Reality	113	128	148	78
News	66	85	70

This year:
 

Type	ABC	CBS	NBC	Fox
Overall	96	120	126	121
Original Series	95	97	109	100
Non-Series	96	175	155	147
Scripted	94	92	97	97
Comedy	93	137	73	105
Drama	95	82	102	94
Unscripted	97	108	128	105
Reality	108	122	149	105
News	72	91	61

NBC had the most dominant "overall" season on record last year when it had both the Super Bowl and Olympics, but got a lot more competition this year as CBS took the Super Bowl and Fox picked up Thursday Night Football (plus a much stronger entertainment department).

Real Estate

Last year:

Genre	ABC	CBS	NBC	Fox	CW
Originals	70%	70%	59%	58%	70%
Repeats	13%	20%	14%	23%	20%
Sports	8%	5%	20%	13%
Specials	6%	5%	4%	5%	10%
Movies	3%		2%	0%	1%

This year:

Genre	ABC	CBS	NBC	Fox	CW
Originals	66%	70%	62%	55%	68%
Repeats	14%	19%	19%	25%	24%
Sports	9%	6%	12%	17%
Specials	8%	5%	5%	3%	9%
Movies	2%		2%	0%

With Thursday Night Football added to Thursday, Fox set another new low for original series volume at a mere 55%. ABC and the CW also dropped a bit in original volume, from 70% last year into the upper-60's, while CBS remained at 70% and NBC was up into the low-60's with no Olympics this year.

Here's the now updated A18-49+ Networks post.

Here's the now updated A18-49+ Deeper Networks post.