For decades, the evening lineups on ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC formed the cornerstone of American television. These four broadcast powerhouses—often referred to as the “Big Four”—dominated primetime ratings, defined pop culture, and reached tens of millions of households each night. Today, their position isn’t just eroding—it’s collapsing.
Linear TV as a whole is undergoing one of the most dramatic shifts in its history. Traditional viewing habits have unraveled as streaming services, digital platforms, and on-demand content redefine consumer expectations. The implications are profound: over the past ten years, total viewership on the Big Four has dropped sharply, and the trend shows no signs of reversing.
This analysis unpacks the key forces behind the downfall. Expect clear data on the declining audience share, the impact of cable cord-cutting, network strategy failures, and how shifting viewer loyalties are shaking the foundations of broadcast television in the United States.
In 2013, ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX occupied the commanding heights of American entertainment. Collectively, the Big Four averaged over 35 million primetime viewers each night. By 2023, that figure fell below 18 million—a drop of nearly 50% in just ten years, according to Nielsen data.
NBC, once the undisputed leader in primetime, averaged 7.43 million viewers per night in the 2013-2014 TV season. In 2022-2023, that number dropped to 5.3 million. CBS, the most-watched network for much of the 2000s, went from 9.4 million to 5.4 million. ABC's primetime audience fell from 7.2 million to 3.7 million, while FOX, already the youngest-skewing broadcast network, lost more than 40% of its average viewers—going from 6.4 million to just under 3.6 million.
Scripted dramas, once the backbone of network primetime, lost significant ground. CBS's "NCIS" pulled 19.3 million live viewers in 2013. Its 2023 season premiere drew just 5.9 million. Over on ABC, "Grey’s Anatomy" debuted in 2005 with over 16 million viewers; its 2023 season hovered around 3.2 million.
News programming saw parallel declines. “NBC Nightly News” attracted 8.5 million nightly viewers in 2013; in 2023, it sank to 5.8 million. ABC's “World News Tonight”, while still a ratings leader, dropped from 8.7 million to 7.3 million viewers. CBS Evening News experienced one of the steepest declines, going from 6.4 million to just under 4.7 million viewers over the same decade.
Flashback to 2013: the Big Four dominated the Nielsen Top 30 shows, with streaming barely registering. Today, none of the top ten most-watched programs are exclusive to a broadcast network. Streaming services, cable networks, and NFL telecasts fill the new hierarchy. Network TV now experiences its smallest share of total viewing time since Nielsen began tracking combined digital and broadcast minutes.
Each network lost between 35% and 50% of its regular primetime audience over the decade. That trend shows no signs of halting. While special events like the Super Bowl still deliver massive numbers, standard weekly programming now struggles to breach even the 4-million mark routinely.
How did four giants that once shaped the national conversation lose half their audience—and more importantly, where has that audience gone?
Viewers no longer wait for a specific time slot to enjoy their favorite content—streaming services made that behavior obsolete. Over the past 10 years, Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube have steadily pulled audiences away from traditional TV, not with better antenna signals, but with a complete overhaul of content accessibility and customization. The result: a seismic shift in how, when, and where Americans consume visual media.
Netflix alone had 260.28 million global paid subscribers by the end of 2023, according to company earnings reports. Hulu, available only in the U.S., reported 49.7 million subscribers in the same period. These platforms removed time constraints by offering entire seasons at once—a binge-watching format that Hollywood production cycles have since adapted to.
Both Netflix and Hulu also transformed expectations by investing heavily in original content. In 2023, Netflix allocated over $17 billion to content creation. Hulu, under Disney’s broader strategic umbrella, continued to scale its original offerings while bundling with ESPN+ and Disney+ to create an ecosystem that traditional broadcasters cannot replicate.
YouTube did not start as a threat to network TV, but its evolution into the world’s largest video platform turned it into a direct competitor. As of 2023, over 2.49 billion people logged into YouTube monthly, consuming over 1 billion hours of video daily. Pew Research Center data from 2023 shows that 95% of U.S. teens aged 13–17 use YouTube, far exceeding use of any traditional platform.
What differentiates YouTube is its creator-first model. It democratized content production, empowering individuals to rival established studios. Lifestyle vloggers, gaming streamers, and independent journalists carved out loyal niche audiences that ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX can’t reach through mass scheduling.
Streaming services succeeded by eliminating friction. No fixed schedules. No commercials (or at least optional ones). No need to plan—just log in and press play. This always-available model rewrote behaviors. Viewers grew accustomed to curating their own media instead of conforming to network timetables. Whether it’s watching a series at 2 AM or pausing mid-episode to switch devices, streaming normalized control at the user level.
Every shift reduced broadcast TV’s relevance. Platforms that anticipated these needs didn’t just disrupt—they redefined the expectation of what television is supposed to deliver.
Cord-cutting refers to the decision by television viewers to cancel their traditional cable or satellite TV subscriptions in favor of internet-based services. This trend has escalated over the past decade, transforming from a fringe movement into a mainstream choice. According to Leichtman Research Group, U.S. cable and satellite providers lost over 5.9 million subscribers in 2022 alone, following a decade-long pattern of decline that shows no signs of slowing. That’s an average loss of more than 16,000 subscribers per day.
Legacy networks—ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC—built their empires on predictable, linear programming delivered through rigid time slots. Cord-cutting undermines this structure entirely. Audiences no longer accept the constraints of fixed schedules when platforms like Netflix or Hulu offer complete seasons on demand. As more households sever their cable connections, the structural foundation of linear TV erodes. Nielsen data from Q3 2023 reveals that traditional broadcast TV accounted for just 20.4% of total TV usage in the U.S., down from 28.7% in 2018. That gap has been filled almost entirely by streaming.
Cable subscription fees once guaranteed a steady flow of revenue to networks, bolstering both operational budgets and content creation pipelines. But as households abandon cable packages, those monthly revenues vanish. The financial fallout doesn’t end there. Advertisers—tracking viewership data in real time—adjust spending accordingly. The result? Shrinking ad revenue across the board. Between 2015 and 2023, total advertising revenue for linear television declined by nearly 40%, a trend clearly linked to fewer eyeballs on traditional channels.
Even cable news giants—particularly CNN and Fox News—have not escaped the impact. Both networks reached peak viewership during high-stakes election cycles, but struggled to maintain momentum afterward. Adults under 35 now cite online platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok as their primary sources for current events. Pew Research data from 2023 shows that just 12% of adults aged 18–29 regularly get news from cable television, down from 24% in 2016. Viewer loyalty has fragmented, and the traditional anchors of media trust face an uphill battle to stay relevant.
Looking at the last ten years as a whole, the disappearance of the cable box isn't symbolic—it’s measurable. Households aren't simply replacing one content provider with another. They're leaving behind an entire distribution model that cannot match the agility, personalization, and cost-efficiency of streaming ecosystems.
Viewership declines on traditional networks haven't spared their flagship news divisions. ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News—all once foundational sources of information for American households—have seen their audience numbers fall sharply over the past decade. Nielsen data shows that between 2011 and 2021, the combined audience for the three major nightly news broadcasts dropped by nearly 36%, from approximately 22 million total viewers down to just over 14 million.
The erosion becomes more pronounced when breaking the numbers down by age group. Younger demographics—particularly those aged 18 to 34—have all but vanished from nightly news rosters. According to Pew Research Center, in 2022, just 14% of adults under 30 said they regularly watch TV news. That figure stood at over 30% a decade ago. The steepness of the decline leaves little ambiguity: network news has lost its grip on the generations that grew up digital.
Legacy news programming now competes less with other network shows and more with the infinite scroll of smartphones. Digital-native platforms like Axios, NowThis, and The Recount deliver bite-sized, mobile-friendly updates designed for social media algorithms. These outlets operate on formats that directly clash with the structure of traditional 30-minute or hourly broadcasts. Their success has siphoned attention from conventional anchors and studios.
Moreover, YouTube and TikTok have transformed into primary news sources for younger users. A 2022 Reuters Institute report found that 39% of Gen Z news consumers say they frequently access news via social media platforms, while only 13% said they rely on TV. The game has shifted from a fixed schedule to real-time discovery, where trending clips outpace full broadcasts.
Even at the polar ends of the ideological spectrum, viewership erosion is evident. Fox News and CNN—both powerhouses in cable news—have struggled to retain consistent audience numbers in the post-election lull. In 2023, CNN saw its primetime ratings drop by 34% year-over-year, averaging just 480,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. Fox News remains the cable leader, yet its own primetime average dipped nearly 20% compared to 2021.
Polarization may drive momentary spikes, but it hasn't reversed long-term attrition. As audience fatigue sets in, even the most sensational coverage fails to convert viewers into loyalists. Social-first independents like Breaking Points or The Young Turks fill the vacuum with longer-form, opinion-driven content, attracting millions of views without airing on traditional television.
The media ecosystem today doesn’t split simply between “broadcast” and “cable.” It operates as a fragmented terrain where viewership spreads across live TV, streaming platforms, podcasts, newsletters, and social feeds. In this multi-channel environment, network news competes not only with other news—but with everything else that commands time and attention.
The centralized experience of sitting down to watch the evening news at a set time is no longer normative. Now, news reaches users via push notifications, YouTube channels, podcast episodes, and TikTok explainers. In this realignment, the old giants of broadcast lose relevance not just in ratings—but in cultural resonance and daily routines.
Age defines how Americans consume television in 2024. While baby boomers remain loyal to traditional broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX, younger viewers have overwhelmingly abandoned them. The generational divide is not closing—it’s widening with each passing year.
In the 2023 Nielsen Total Audience Report, adults aged 65+ spent an average of over 7 hours per day with traditional TV, including live and time-shifted viewing. This cohort displays consistent viewing habits, consuming news, scripted dramas, and daytime television in scheduled blocks through a cable box or digital antenna.
Approximately 68% of adults 65 and older still use pay-TV services, according to a 2022 report from Pew Research. Their loyalty to network brands and affinity for predictable programming formats keeps ABC, CBS, and NBC afloat during early evening newscasts and primetime hours.
Contrast that with Gen Z and younger Millennials, whose viewing behavior centers on mobile devices, social platforms, and streaming libraries. According to Deloitte’s 2023 Digital Media Trends report, only 12% of Gen Z respondents rank traditional TV among their top three entertainment platforms. Instead, YouTube, TikTok, and Netflix dominate daily screen time.
Roku’s 2023 Annual Cord-Cutting Study found that 86% of Gen Z and Millennial users watch most of their TV using ad-supported or subscription-based streaming services. Regular tuning in to a network’s 8 p.m. lineup has become a foreign concept to these viewers.
Networks have felt the demographic shift in real time. CBS, which once built entire nights around procedural dramas, is now aggressively licensing its back catalog to streaming platforms to reach younger audiences. NBC has doubled down on reboots and mass appeal streaming partnerships, recognizing that appointment viewing no longer attracts 18-34-year-olds in meaningful numbers.
The industry has responded with metrics like C3 and C7 ratings to capture delayed viewership, but the reality remains: Boomers still watch broadcast TV in real time — Gen Z doesn’t watch it at all. This generational split will continue to drive programming, advertising, and platform strategies for every major network moving forward.
What happens to network TV when its most committed viewers are aging out of advertiser prime demos? Executives at ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC are scrambling for an answer.
Prime-time television once ruled the airwaves. Networks like ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC built entire brand identities around their 8–11 PM programming blocks, banking on the idea that audiences would schedule their evenings around appointment viewing. That model has collapsed.
On-demand platforms flipped the relationship. Instead of viewers organizing time around a TV slot, the content now conforms to personal schedules. Netflix pioneered this flexibility with full-season releases like “House of Cards” in 2013, and the binge model became standard. Disney+, Hulu, Max, and countless others followed. Weekly releases have not disappeared entirely, but forcing audiences to wait has become a strategic choice, not a standard assumption.
The shift isn't just when people watch—it's how. According to Nielsen, as of Q4 2023, nearly 71% of U.S. households used a streaming service daily, and binge-watching is no longer a niche habit. In 2021, Deloitte reported that 73% of U.S. consumers preferred watching multiple episodes at once instead of one at a time. This stands in direct contrast to the traditional structure of television, where weekly episodes aimed to build routine and anticipation.
This binge preference has eroded event-viewing habits. Why wait seven days when the next three episodes are seconds away on your dashboard? For linear networks, the fallout is measurable.
Look at FOX’s once-dominant Tuesday comedy block or NBC’s Thursday night sitcoms. Once central to the cultural conversation, these programming anchors have lost gravity among viewers and advertisers. NBC's “Must See TV”—which once included juggernauts like “Friends” and “The Office”—has no equivalent today commanding the same loyalty or ratings.
Why? These shows face competition not just from rival networks, but from entire seasons of streaming dramas, reality content on YouTube, and algorithm-driven feeds on TikTok. Even live events can’t escape disruption: DVR, catch-up apps, and expanded rights for digital streaming dilute immediacy. For sitcoms and serialized dramas that once thrived on week-to-week buildup, the loss of appointment TV has cut deep into viewership numbers.
Linear TV tried to maintain relevance—adding streaming layers like Peacock and Hulu Live—but failed to replicate the immediacy and flexibility that audiences now expect. As a result, scheduled programming no longer serves as the backbone of network identity. It’s just another drop in the content ocean.
Ten years ago, a new primetime drama meant a barrage of TV trailers, magazine ads, and billboards. Today, networks rarely capture attention that way. Traditional television promotions have withered under the dominance of social media algorithms. No one waits for a teaser during commercial breaks—if a show doesn’t go viral online, it seldom gains traction. TikTok trends, Instagram Reels, and Facebook shares now determine what content rises to public consciousness.
The mechanics are clear. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels push short, punchy video content through sophisticated algorithmic feeds. Exposure depends more on engagement velocity than on promotional budgets. A fresh NBC comedy may air weekly, but a 14-second viral clip from a YouTube creator can rack up 5 million views in 12 hours. The audience’s entry point has shifted decisively—from scheduled TV times to endless vertical scroll.
User behavior on social platforms rewired the content discovery funnel. In a 2023 Pew Research Center study, 33% of adults aged 18–29 cited social media as their dominant source of news and entertainment, doubling the figure from 2013. TikTok now influences music charts, movie box office earnings, and Amazon bestsellers. Its effect on traditional programming visibility is no different.
Content isn’t sought out; it finds the user. Facebook’s suggested videos tap into habits formed over billions of user interactions. Instagram’s Explore page, optimized by every tap and hold, recommends audios or visuals far more effectively than a 30-second spot on CBS. If a show isn’t surfaced in these attention loops, it effectively doesn’t exist for a large part of the population.
Network dramas once relied on live audience engagement. Now, they depend increasingly on whether a moment can be clipped, memed, and shared. Live viewing has been replaced by fragment consumption—short GIFs, context-less quotes, stitched TikToks. These bite-sized pieces move faster and more widely than full-length episodes, creating cultural memory without full narrative context.
Social virality subverts the ecosystem that networks once controlled—viewers no longer come to the content. The content must come to them, wrapped in a format suited to feeds, not living rooms.
Real-time community reactions also amplify discovery. Replies under trending tweets, duet chains on TikTok, comment sections filled with timestamped hype—these become guideposts pointing others to clips worth watching. The traditional TV promo can't compete with a constantly updating viral loop powered by millions of users' attention.
As audiences migrate to digital platforms, advertisers have followed with remarkable speed and scale. The shift in ad spending reflects not just preference, but performance. Traditional broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, once dominant forces in media revenue, are facing serious erosion in their advertiser base.
In 2013, advertisers in the U.S. spent roughly $64 billion on television, according to Statista. By 2023, that figure dropped to $61 billion—a decline, but relatively modest on the surface. However, this hides a sharp contrast underneath: broadcast network ad revenue has decreased while digital platforms have scaled aggressively. By 2023, digital advertising spend in the U.S. surpassed $200 billion, with Google and Meta dominating the space.
Google’s YouTube alone generated over $40 billion in ad revenue in 2023, according to Alphabet’s earnings reports. Meta (Facebook + Instagram) collected even more, drastically outpacing what any single television network earned. The dollars that once funded prime-time dramas, sitcoms, and news broadcasts are now fueling pre-roll ads, influencer campaigns, and branded content series on platforms where audiences actually watch.
Nielsen data shows that network audience reach has declined by more than 50% over the past decade. Fewer eyeballs equals fewer impressions, and that has translated directly into budget cuts from major advertisers. ABC, owned by Disney, and NBC, part of Comcast's portfolio, have both failed to keep pace with audience fragmentation. In the past, shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Voice” commanded top-tier ad rates. As of 2023, few network programs break into the top ten most-viewed weekly offerings across platforms.
Even long-loyal TV advertisers—automakers, consumer packaged goods, telecoms—have diversified out of necessity. They're no longer confined to national TV buys on NBC during a Thursday-night lineup. They're everywhere the viewer goes, and that's more likely to be TikTok, Instagram Reels, or a Netflix pre-roll than a 9 p.m. sitcom slot.
The advertising ecosystem is no longer anchored by TV upfronts. Today, it’s driven by real-time analytics, direct engagement metrics, and algorithm-driven content delivery. With traditional networks losing direct access to their once captive audiences, brands have adapted by reallocating their messaging to where it actually gets seen. That isn't on broadcast TV anymore.
To claw back audience share lost over the last decade, legacy networks have pivoted toward streaming — some more aggressively than others. CBS launched Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access) in 2014, making it one of the first major broadcast networks to attempt a direct-to-consumer pivot. NBC responded with Peacock in 2020, offering both free and premium ad-supported tiers. FOX, acquiring streaming platform Tubi in 2020 for $440 million, chose an alternate model: offering an ad-supported, free-to-stream archive-heavy platform stacked with licensed content.
These ventures aim to replicate the fluid accessibility that Netflix and Hulu’ve made standard. However, not all network platforms have scaled at the same pace. Peacock closed 2023 with approximately 31 million paid subscribers, which pales in comparison to Hulu’s 49.7 million and Netflix’s 260 million global subscribers (as reported in Q4 2023 earnings statements). Paramount+, while bolstered by legacy CBS content and live news/sports, remains substantially smaller with 28 million paid subscribers.
Another strategy has focused on content impervious to time-shifting: live programming. Sports has become more than entertainment — it’s a survival mechanism. NFL games on CBS, NBC, and FOX remain among the highest-rated broadcasts annually. In 2023, NBC’s "Sunday Night Football" averaged 19.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched primetime television program for the 12th consecutive year, according to Nielsen.
Networks also doubled down on live reality programming, which continues to generate real-time engagement. FOX’s "The Masked Singer" and ABC’s "American Idol" rely heavily on live voting mechanics and social chatter to create urgency. These formats lean into interactivity to combat the on-demand expectation embedded in modern viewing behavior.
Despite these adjustments, broadcast networks still lag when it comes to original scripted programming. While Netflix continues to release more than 500 original titles annually, networks struggle to compete with the volume, flexibility, and global reach of streaming content ecosystems. NBC’s signature show "This Is Us" ended in 2022, and no equivalent breakout hit has emerged to replace its cultural footprint. FOX leaned into animation and crime procedurals but hasn’t produced a Game of Thrones-level phenomenon, even with heavy investment.
And development cycles remain a constraint. Networks push pilots through fixed seasonal schedules, while streaming services greenlight projects year-round. This bottleneck limits creative risk and slows innovation. Audiences accustomed to full-season drops aren’t waiting week-by-week anymore — and broadcast hasn’t adjusted to that reality in structure or in scope.
Take a close look at the programming slates, and the cracks show. While the launch of streaming offshoots and a reliance on legacy IP signify attempts to modernize, these often feel reactive rather than visionary. With Disney+ (ABC's parent portfolio) increasingly prioritizing its own platform content, ABC remains in a precarious branding position — caught between cross-platform synergy and dwindling network identity.
The question remains: are networks reshaping their models for long-term relevance, or simply repackaging yesterday's formulas in a digital wrapper? As competition stiffens and audiences cement new habits, these networks must prove they're not only adapting — but evolving fast enough to stay in the game.
Viewership on ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC has not simply declined — it has undergone a tectonic shift. Between 2013 and 2023, these once-dominant networks lost tens of millions of nightly viewers. According to Nielsen data, prime time audiences across all four networks dropped by over 50% in that span. The erosion isn't incremental. It's sustained, systemic, and accelerates as younger demographics abandon live TV almost entirely.
Audience share tells the same story in sharper detail. In 2013, the Big Four controlled nearly 40% of total TV viewership. By 2023, that figure fell below 20%, as platforms like Netflix, Disney+, TikTok, and YouTube consumed both time and cultural clout. These digital-first competitors don’t just deliver content — they own the conversation, dictate the trends, and construct the formats.
It’s no accident that breakout moments in entertainment now stem from TikTok challenges or YouTube series before they ever touch the prime-time grid. Netflix premieres trigger mass global engagement within 24 hours; hardly any network drama generates even a fraction of that reach. Airdates no longer matter. Algorithms do.
Legacy media companies cannot reverse this tide by rearranging the same playbook. The shift requires more than scripted reboots and franchise spinoffs. Without redefining how audiences are reached, linear TV will continue to bleed viewers. The next decade won’t belong to whoever owns the 8 p.m. slot. It will go to those who engineer habit-forming formats across platforms, capture short-form engagement, and adapt viral dynamics into scalable media models.
What will replace the golden age of broadcast is already here. The metrics have changed. Attention, not airtime, is the currency. Until networks respond to that reality not with worry but with reinvention, relevance will remain elsewhere — and ratings will follow.
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