John Consoli

Millennials are continuing to defect from live broadcast television viewing in the summer. Through July 27 the five English-language broadcast networks in primetime were cumulatively averaging 2.3 million 18-34 viewers per night, down about 600,000 or 20% from the 2.9 million they were averaging during the same period in the summer of 2013.

Fox has suffered the biggest millennial defections, down 207,000 18-34 viewers in the summer, or a whopping 27%; ABC is next, down 164,000 viewers in the young demo, a decline of 19%. NBC is drawing 126,000 fewer 18-34 viewers, down 19%, while CBS is down just 68,000, off a lower base but down 16% in that demo.

Despite the greatly exaggerated reports over the years that the broadcast evening news daypart was on the demise, it is still alive and doing very well from a ratings standpoint.

Ironically, however, the fact has gone somewhat underreported -- the trade press and other media outlets give the evening news telecasts very little coverage compared to the morning shows, late-night and even the daytime soaps.

Media buyers know it as a place where the clients who want to reach a bit of an older audience can buy commercial time at a fraction of the cost of broadcast primetime -- 30% to 40% cheaper for a 30-second spot in the average primetime entertainment show. And while the big battle for viewers between ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today show in the mornings has been receiving continuous media coverage, those networks’ half-hour evening news shows are drawing virtually the same number of 18-49 viewers and viewers in the 25-54 “news” demo as the morning shows.

Of course, much like the morning news shows, the bulk of the audience is 55-plus for all three networks. Some 17 million of the nearly 25 million total viewers of the three networks’ evening news shows are 55-plus. While the evening news daypart has been losing viewers steadily over the past few decades, during the 2013-14 season, each of the networks’ evening news telecasts grew in viewers.

Overall this past season, the three networks cumulatively grew their viewership by 1.44 million -- not a huge amount but a gain nonetheless.