BELLEVUE, Wash.—Sports were a particularly bright spot for the TV industry and streamers in Q3 2023 according to a new report from iSpot.tv that found college football household TV ad impressions climbed 54.5% YoY in Q3 2023 thanks in part to increased exposure on CBS, NBC and CW, along with more ad airings.
College football also had the most TV ad impressions of any program in Q3. It just barely edged out the NFL, 2.09% of total impressions compared to 2.05% for the NFL.
Nielsen has separately reported that sports drove a surge in viewing among broadcasters in September of 2023.
The new iSpot.tv 2023 Q3 TV Transparency report also highlighted the importance of sports for streaming services advertising their services. NFL games delivered 9% of Q3 TV ad impressions for streaming services (No. 1 among all programs) as advertisers, while college football ranked second with 3.2% of their ad impressions. Notably, eight out of the top ten most-seen streaming service TV advertisers in Q3 are affiliated with parent companies that have secured NFL game rights deals, including Paramount, NBCU, Disney, Fox, Google, and Amazon.
In addition, YouTube TV, now home to NFL Sunday Ticket, jumped 31 spots YoY by streaming TV ad impressions, to No. 7 overall.
CBS led all networks with 6.41% of household TV ad impressions in Q3, followed by ABC at No. 2, with 6.32% but overall ad impressions increased only 1.4% in Q3 2023 compared to Q3 2022. That modest increase came at a time when estimated national TV ad spend dipped by 5.95%, iSpot.tv reported.
The full report, which includes detailed information on advertising categories and individual brands and networks, is available here.
