Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade took a dip in its ratings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Deadline, 20.7 million people tuned in to NBC’s coverage of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade that was held on Thursday. The show drew in a 5.3 rating in adults ages 18 to 49 and was mostly pre-taped due to the ongoing pandemic.
The event started at 9 a.m. and ended at noon on the east coast. The parade was reportedly down two tenths from 2019’s event, which had 22.1 million viewers. Deadline reports the year-over-year drops were 3 percent in the demographics and 6 percent in viewers. While the event saw a few drops in numbers, the event became the highest-rated and most-watched telecast of 2020 during a TV season.
After the parade came NBC’s coverage of the National Dog Show, which gained 11.3 million viewers. The traditional Thanksgiving primetime NFL game was moved to Sunday, then to Tuesday following positive Covid-19 tests on the Baltimore Ravens team they were set to go against Pittsburgh Steelers.
Other shows that aired during Thanksgiving primetime were Fox’s series of competition lineups, including The Masked Singer (3.0, 10.17M) and I Can See Your Voice (1.6, 5.53M). ABC aired its two-hour special Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration (0.4, 2.46M), CBS’ Star Trek: Discovery (0.2, 1.51M) and the CW’s Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life mini (0.1, 350,000) during its primetime, according to Deadline.
