- ESPN’s Primetime Audience Highest Nielsen Q1 Since 2012
- ESPN & Sports on ABC Delivered Best Nielsen Q1 Since 2012
ESPN delivered its most-watched Nielsen Quarter 1 (January – March) in eight years, one of many notable achievements for the company during the first three months of 2025.
Across its primary network, ESPN averaged 868,000 viewers during every minute of January, February and March (90 days). In addition to achieving its best Nielsen Q1 viewership since 2017, ESPN’s average-minute-audience was up 22% overall and 15% in the Persons 18-49 demo from Nielsen Q1 in 2024.
Isolating primetime (8-11 p.m. ET), ESPN averaged 2,299,000 viewers on each of the 90 nights, its best within the Nielsen Q1 since 2012. The nearly 2.3 million viewers is a 36% increase year-over-year.
ESPN’s total day success in Neilsen Q1 was the result of exceptional individual monthly highlights:
- January: ESPN’s most-watched month across the entire year since 2015 (120 months).
- February: ESPN’s highest February viewership in seven years, dating back to 2018.
- March: ESPN’s second-best March in six years, dating back to 2019.
More Nielsen Quarter 1 Successes
Expanding beyond ESPN’s primary network, multi-year highs and year-over-year growth continued for the company:
- Combining all of ESPN’s programming with sports programming on ABC, fans consumed more of ESPN’s content (145.1 billion minutes) than any other Nielsen Q1 dating back 13 years (2012) and the totality was up 16% year-over-year.
- For the quarter, across all its Nielsen-rated networks, ESPN achieved 36% sports viewership, up from 33% in the same 2024 quarter.
This year’s Nielsen Quarter 1 cover December 30, 2024 to March 30, 2025. All previous years have similar time frames.
Media Contact:
Derek Volner: Derek.Volner@ESPN.com
-
-
-
-
-
