The Entertainment TV Opportunity
On a Wednesday night in December 2025, nearly million people tune in live to watch the finale of Survivor season 49. They're not just watching—they're engaged, leaning forward, avoiding social media spoilers, and planning tomorrow's water cooler conversation. By the next morning, 2.1 million more catch up before someone ruins the tribal council blindside.
This isn't sports. It's entertainment television. And it's been delivering this level of engaged, appointment viewing for decades—generally at a fraction of the cost that advertisers pay for comparable reach in sports programming.
Entertainment TV represents the foundation of television viewership. In 2024, entertainment programming accounts for roughly 64% of all TV viewing hours, reaching over 70 million cable households regularly. From competition reality like The Voice and Dancing with the Stars to procedural dramas like NCIS and Law & Order, from late-night comedy to cooking competitions, entertainment programming delivers massive reach across diverse audiences—and does so with remarkable efficiency.
Yet for all its scale and effectiveness, entertainment TV operates in the shadow of sports when it comes to advertiser attention and investment. Sports commands CPMs of $60 or more; entertainment programming delivers comparable audiences at $25-30 per thousand viewers. The pricing disconnect creates one of the most significant arbitrage opportunities in television advertising today.
This paper makes the case for entertainment TV not as an alternative to sports, but as the strategic foundation for efficient reach-building. We'll explore what entertainment TV actually encompasses, who watches it and why, how viewing behavior creates engagement opportunities, and where the pricing inefficiency creates strategic advantage for advertisers who understand the data.
The opportunity isn't about choosing between sports and entertainment. It's about recognizing that while sports generate headlines and cultural moments, entertainment TV quietly delivers the reach, frequency, and efficiency that drive actual business outcomes—if you know where to look and how to buy it.
Let's start by defining what we mean when we talk about entertainment television.