NBC's Ratings Keep Sinking

NBC’s long-struggling ratings are only getting worse as the new television season gets under way. Some 3.3 million 18- to 49-year-olds have been tuning in to the network's primetime offerings over the past four weeks, a 9.3% drop from the year before, the Wall Street Journal reports. And if you leave out NFL games, viewership is down 16% from a year earlier, with just 2.2 million viewers.

By comparison, ABC’s viewership has fallen 5.8% this year and CBS' 2.3%; Fox has seen its number of viewers increase 11%. “No network has ever been as far behind financially as NBC is,” says the CEO of NBCUniversal. NBC’s primetime shows lose hundreds of millions of dollars yearly. With its purchase of NBC this year, Comcast’s goal has been to bring back the network’s pre-2004 heyday—a process it expects to take three to five years. Already, the company is focusing on next year’s lineup. Click through for more on the network’s woes. (More NBC stories.)