CBS chief Les Moonves shouldn’t get too comfortable with his crown as the No. 1 network with younger viewers.
After winning the broadcast race for the 18-to-49 audience for the first time last season, CBS has gotten off to a rough start this fall, suffering the steepest decline in that key demo among its peers.
In the opening five weeks of the TV season, CBS saw ratings in the key demo fall by 7.3 percent, to a 2.02 rating, according to Horizon Media research chief Brad Adgate.
“In 18-to-49-year-olds, it’s going to be a much tighter race than CBS would like it to be,” Adgate told The Post.
Although CBS has long been the top-rated network in total viewers, last season marked the first time it took the top spot in the audience chased by youth-obsessed advertisers, ending Fox’s almost decade-long hold on that demographic title.
Monday nights are of particular concern for CBS. Its normally strong sitcom block, which runs from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., showed steep declines for both new and returning shows, including hits like “2 Broke Girls” and “How I Met Your Mother.”
“The network has seen significant weakness on Mondays, the first major hole in CBS’ schedule in several years,” Doug Creutz, an entertainment analyst at Cowen & Co., wrote in a report to clients.
“2 Broke Girls” dropped from a 3.5 rating to a 2.5 rating in the key demo during the first five weeks of the season. Each rating point represents 1.27 million viewers.
Creutz said CBS was down 6.2 percent in the first four weeks of the season, drawing 2.8 million viewers in the 18-to-49-year-old demo through Oct. 20.
CBS uses a slightly different formula to crunch the ratings to include football overruns.
By its count, CBS is down just 4 percent in the key demo over the first five weeks — the same decrease as ABC. Both NBC and Fox are up in that demo this season, with NBC in the lead.