Networks Party With Mad Men as Online Viewing Hurts Cable

Broadcast executives descending on New York this week to court advertisers in the annual ritual known as the Upfronts have reason to crow: Online viewership is hurting their cable competitors.

Those are the same cable networks that spent the past two decades snatching viewers from the four broadcasters. Their success made it easier to convince marketers that their audiences, while smaller, were more loyal and younger than those of CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox. Cable’s share of upfront spending was 54 percent in 2014-2015, up from 18 percent in 1992-1993, according to data from Nomura Securities International Inc.