Nov 25, 2023 - Business

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a ratings monster

Dave Lawler

The Kung Fu Panda's Po balloon floats down Central Park West. Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

Good old live TV maintains at least one huge draw that's not the NFL: the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

By the numbers: A record 28.5 million people tuned in to watch on NBC and its Peacock streaming platform, up 6% from last year. That makes it the year's highest-rated entertainment broadcast, per the Hollywood Reporter.

Why it matters: "The record is particularly impressive at a time when even major live events have witnessed ratings erosion," the Hollywood Reporter notes.

"In a good sign of the parade's status as an American institution," Variety adds, "more than two-thirds of that audience (22.3 million) came from the live linear telecast on NBC from 8:30 a.m. to noon ET and live streams on Peacock."
Just over 5 million viewers watched a repeat telecast from 2-5 p.m. ET on NBC and on-demand streams via Peacock.

The previous records were 25.4 million in 2021 — and 25.9 million in the asterisk year of 2020, when viewers were homebound for COVID and the parade was pretaped without crowds.

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Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a ratings monster

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