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Millennials provide ESPN with total live audience boost in total day, prime time

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Millennials provide ESPN with total live audience boost in total day, prime time

Boosted by strong numbers among millennials, ESPN (US) recorded a double-digit rise across total-day and prime-time viewership under a recently adopted metric incorporating linear, streaming and out-of-home watching.

During the seven-week period, spanning Sept. 25 through Nov. 12, ESPN tallied 14% more audience when streaming and out-of-home watching were added to viewing from cable, satellite and telco set-top boxes, as well as virtual programming distributors, according to data stemming from Nielsen Holdings' Total Audience Measurement framework.

ESPN kicked off its use of total live audience measurement with its coverage of the Sept. 25 "Monday Night Football" match-up between Dallas and Arizona. ESPN believes reporting one number with the third-party validation across the various screens and platforms is more reflective of the way viewers are consuming sports and entertainment programming today and provides a metric for ESPN to gain full value in the advertising market for its audience.

An ESPN spokeswoman said the sports programmer closed some upfront deals tied to total live audience, and the metric now serves as the base for half of its advertising accords.

Among millennials, the total live audience amelioration is more pronounced, which makes sense because younger people are more inclined to engage in streaming and tend to be out more at restaurants and taverns and health clubs. With the broader viewing metric, ESPN recorded gains of 28% and 23% in prime time and total day above its traditional audience levels among persons 18 to 34. ESPN said millennials account for 46% of its overall streaming consumption. Women represented 34% of millennial out-of-home viewing over the seven-week span, which led to a 12% increase in total live audience among females of that age.

Buoyed by the inclusion of streaming and out-of-home viewing during the seven-week period, ESPN reported 4% and 13% gains in total day and prime time overall with millennials, on a year-over-year basis through Nov. 12

"These early findings from Nielsen tell us that total live audience is the only meaningful way to understand sports consumption, including key insights into our millennial viewers," said Cary Meyers, senior vice president of fan and media intelligence, ESPN, in a release. "We will continue to mine this data to not only inform us on how best to serve fans with our content, but also to guide advertisers on how best to optimize their brand on our platform with specific audiences."

Some of ESPN’s biggest properties benefited substantially from the new metric. The audiences for ESPN’s college football coverage and "Monday Night Football" presentations expanded 16% and 13%, respectively, when streaming and out-of-home viewing were factored in, while NBA audiences leaped 18%. Among millennials, the respective total live audiences were 33%, 26% and 27% above traditional viewing for the aforementioned properties.

The streaming and out-of-home contributions also served to augment ESPN’s millennial audience by 33% for "College GameDay," 28% for "Monday Night Countdown," 19% for "First Take," 16% for "Sunday NFL Countdown" and 14% for "SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt."

Streaming of ESPN on ABC (US) broadcasts is not included in total live audience at this time.