As the world collectively said a long-awaited goodbye to 2020 in a variety of ways, TV viewers in the United States had a clear favorite among a wide range of options. The Disney-owned ABC dominated the New Years Time Square coverage with their annual Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest.
The ABC special was broken into two segments, part 1 aired between 8-10PM and part 2 aired between 10PM and midnight. Part 1 saw 7.46 million viewers, besting NBC’s special by more than 3.1 million. Part 2 saw 10.18 million viewers, besting NBC’s special by more than 5.7 million. Fox ran a special between 8-10PM, drawing 1.99 million. CBS stayed out of the fray and simply ran reruns of previously aired series.
ABC’s coverage stayed relatively unchanged from last year, while the rest of the networks saw a notable dip in viewers compared to one year ago.
The ABC special featured Jennifer Lopez, Cyndi Lauper, and Billy Porter, who performed for small groups of socially distanced first responders in New York’s Time Square.
