Variety has released its annual TV ratings report for 2024, including a look at broadcast and cable TV channels. Overall, outside of sports (including the Olympics and the Super Bowl) and the election, ratings and viewership aren’t good. They’re particularly dire for cable, especially for animation-related channels. Below, I take a look at how Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and the like fared.
Animation cable network ratings for 2024
Note the numbers below are based on primetime viewers, but I doubt the daytime numbers would be much of an improvement. One big change this year: there’s no listing for Cartoon Network, likely since Adult Swim’s ludicrously early 5 PM (ET/PT) start time has taken over all of primetime. There’s also no listing for the recently launched MeTV Toons, though that could change in next year’s report.
The figures below are based on all viewers (versus specific demographics). The numbers in parentheses: viewership ranking; average primetime viewer numbers; and viewership percentage change from 2023. For the sake of thoroughness, I also threw in the major sister channels, even if they’re largely live-action (such as TeenNick, which has aired cartoons occasionally).
- Adult Swim (#47; 210,000; -3%)
- Nick At Nite (#48; 208,000; -15%)
- FXX (#66; 145,000; -29%)
- Nickelodeon (#73; 131,000; -31%)
- Disney Channel (#80; 110,000; -17%)
- Disney Jr. (#93; 84,000; -37%)
- Nick Jr. (#102; 68,000; -39%)
- Nicktoons (#112; 51,000; -12%)
- Boomerang (#124; 34,000; -17%)
- TeenNick (#133; 24,000; -53%)
- Discovery Family (#135; 23,000; -18%)
- Universal Kids (#139; 20,000; -5%)
- Disney XD (#142; 18,000; -44%)
Adult Swim and Boomerang
Adult Swim managed to clock in as the top rated animation-related cable channel, if only by staying somewhat flat (only a 3% decline) versus other channels’ plummeting. Between this and Warner Bros. Discovery’s current leadership not caring about animation outside of Adult Swim and DC Comics (and even that’s iffy), it’s not surprising they’ve given a lopsided amount of air time to Adult Swim. That said, I wonder if rival FXX’s fate (see below) is one reason Adult Swim hasn’t gone 24 hours, similar to its Canadian counterpart; FXX’s lineup is almost entirely Fox animated sitcom reruns.
Cartoon Network at this point is pretty much a hollowed-out shell (without even a website), only existing as Warner Bros.’s children’s programming brand and to fill daytime hours. While I couldn’t’ find daytime TV ratings, I doubt things look good for Cartoon Network.
As for Boomerang, it’s declined by 17%. Aside from the general decline in secondary cable channels’ ratings, I assume Boomerang also now has competition from MeTV Toons.
Disney Channel (and related channels)
Disney got hit pretty hard in 2024. While Disney Channel is down from 2023 by 17%, it’s the secondary channels that really plummeted: Disney Jr. is down by 37%, while Disney XD is down by a whopping 44%. Even FXX is down by 29%. Other than cable TV’s general decline, my assumption is these channels got hit particularly hard by Charter dropping the secondary Disney channels from their lineup.
Nickelodeon (and related channels)
Nickelodeon didn’t fare well in 2024, with a 31% drop over 2023. Its sister channels are also down, with Nick Jr. and TeenNick suffering the biggest declines (39% and 53% each). I can’t find any specific reasons why Nick’s suffered such major declines—cable carriage hijinks like what Disney above suffered? Kids losing interest in schedules full of nothing but “SpongeBob” and “Paw Patrol?” Paramount+, Pluto TV, and YouTube eating into viewership?
Conclusion
As Variety notes, kids have pretty much stopped watching cable TV, instead favoring YouTube, social media, and streaming services. Of course, their parents have also likely stopped paying for cable:
This is starting to sound like a broken record, as Gen Z and Gen Alpha just aren’t watching linear TV. They’re getting their Disney and Nickelodeon fix on streaming, optimistically. But as YouTube and TikTok also grab their attention, it was another rough year for everyone in this space.
While Nickelodeon is still the most popular kids’ animation-related channel, its viewership is way down from even a few years ago. Nickelodeon was huge back in the 80s and 90s (i.e. Gen Xers’ and Millennials’ youths). However, these days, I assume most kids just think of Nick as “the brand SpongeBob is under” or “the Paramount+ category with ‘Paw Patrol’, ‘TMNT’ and ‘The Loud House’.”
Disney also clearly has a stronger focus these days on Disney+ than the cable TV side, though they did acknowledge Disney Channel’s 40th anniversary in 2023. The Mouse House’s Spectrum cable deal seeing Charter ditch a bunch of secondary Disney channels suggests the future is Disney+ and not Disney XD. Of course, Disney+ is also now one of the biggest streaming services, and the main winner of the “streaming wars” newcomers.
Finally, Warner Bros. has made crystal clear that unless a cartoon uses expletives or is somehow tied to Batman/DC Comics, it’s at best a minimal priority… and at worst, well, just ask the animators on “Coyote vs. Acme.” Their excuse is planning to focus on “family programming” via doubling down on “Harry Potter,” the idea of which is its own set of problems (*sigh*). Given all of this and Cartoon Network’s state, the fact Boomerang is even still on the air seems like a miracle.
Overall, even with streaming’s downsides, I don’t see a comeback for these cable channels, or cable itself, happening anytime soon. Traditional cable’s had its day, but unless you need it for sports, news, and/or over-the-air TV reception, you’re probably better off without it. (It’s unclear what the future of cable replacement services is like for YouTube TV or Hulu Live.) Kids now associate cartoons with streaming or YouTube; fewer adults are paying for cable; and the respective media conglomerates have made their cable channels as unappealing as possible, leaving many of them in a zombie-like programming state.
In my case, I don’t miss having cable, or want to pay several times what I pay now for streaming just for a handful of channels. I’ve also pared back on many of their streaming counterparts, while buying DVDs/Blu-rays to set up my own media server.
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto (Pexels)
