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NBC Unable to Shake Slide in RatingsBy SAM SCHECHNER and LAUREN A.E. SCHUKER
NBC's downward slide is getting steeper.
Long a ratings laggard, the network has fallen further behind its competitors this fall, heightening the challenge facing its new owner Comcast Corp. as it works to mount a turnaround.
Through the first four weeks of the TV season ending Oct. 16, about 3.3 million adults under 50 years old have been watching prime-time TV shows on NBC, according to the latest figures from Nielsen Holdings NV. That is down 9.3% from the same period a year earlier. Much of the decline is concentrated in NBC's entertainment shows.
Leaving out National Football League games, which NBC airs on Sunday nights, the network's 18-to-49-year-old audience is 2.2 million—down 16% from a year earlier. That demographic is the audience group most valued by advertisers.
Among the shows demonstrating particularly severe declines are long-running programs like "Law & Order: SVU" and "The Biggest Loser," each of which lost one of its stars. The 18-to-49-year-old audiences for those shows have fallen 20% to 3.4 million and 23% to 3 million, respectively, this season compared to last season, according to Nielsen.
Competitors are faring better. Through four weeks, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC is down 5.8% among viewers 18-to-49 in prime-time, CBS Corp.'s eponymous network is down 2.3% and News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting is up 11%, according to the latest Nielsen data. (News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.)
Sliding ratings are nothing new for NBC, which was once dominant but has seen its prime-time lineup stuck mostly in fourth place since sitcom "Friends" left the air in 2004. Under General Electric Co., NBC executives for years cut costs in a race to keep up with their smaller audiences. But since Comcast purchased the network parent NBCUniversal earlier this year, its executives have said they aim to invest in a turnaround over the next three to five years.
To be sure, Comcast's main interest in NBCU was its stable of profitable cable channels, which contributed 85% of the unit's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, for the three months ended June 30. Ebitda is a commonly used measure of profitability.
By contrast, Comcast sees NBC as a turnaround opportunity. The network's prime-time lineup loses hundreds of millions of dollars per year, according to people familiar with its finances.
"No network has ever been as far behind financially as NBC is," Steve Burke, chief executive of NBCUniversal, said at an analyst conference last month. "But if we can turn the ratings," he said, "you can imagine hundreds of millions of dollars of Ebitda coming into the system that is NBC."
To manage the turnaround, Comcast brought in Bob Greenblatt, former creative chief of CBS Corp.'s Showtime. He spent the summer retooling the network's staff, bringing in new heads of scripted programming, marketing, comedy and publicity. He also worked to improve several of the new shows slated for fall, which had been initiated under the network's previous chiefs.
The network punched up the plot of "The Playboy Club," for instance, but the show ended up being canceled anyway.
"We should expect it's going to be difficult because it's going to be difficult," said Mr. Greenblatt, the network's entertainment chairman, in an interview this summer, ahead of the fall launch.
Much of NBC's focus now is on next season, for which Mr. Greenblatt's new team is buying scripts as part of the yearly cycle of developing new TV shows, according to the people familiar with the network.
That lineup will be the first that entirely bears Mr. Greenblatt's imprimatur.
NBC executives have been saying for months that they have "realistic" expectations for the fall lineup, and expected a tough slog to 2012, when NBC will air the Super Bowl, and bring back popular reality competition show "The Voice."
Some executives last week professed no surprise at the rate of decline. But another person familiar with their thinking added: "It's even less pretty than we had thought it would be."
Ad buyers also say their expectations were already low, but one buyer said that the network could see its share of ad dollars continue to decline along with its ratings.
Adding to NBC's prime-time woes is the potential ripple effect on other parts of its schedule. In late-night this season, NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" trails news show "Nightline," on ABC among adult viewers under the age of 50 during the half-hour they air head-to-head, according to Nielsen.
Part of NBC's problem: Its biggest hits, such as "The Office," are aging. There are some signs of life this fall with a pair of new comedies, "Whitney" and "Up All Night," but those shows are pulling in few viewers compared to new comedies like Fox sitcom "New Girl" and "Two Broke Girls" on CBS, and rank at Nos. 42 and 44, respectively, this season among viewers between 18 and 49 years old.
Poor ratings can be a vicious cycle: Fewer viewers watching NBC means fewer who could sample new shows, making it increasingly difficult to create hits.
To help combat the slide, NBC also has been bulking up with news, one of the few areas where it is still dominant, notably with "Today" and "NBC Nightly News." Next week, the network will launch a new prime-time news magazine called "Rock Center With Brian Williams."
—Suzanne Vranica contributed to this article.
