GMA Network Inc. on Tuesday said it had more TV household viewers than its rival broadcasting companies last month.

In a statement, the Gozon-led broadcasting network said its nationwide ratings widened to 35 points in August, for a 4.1-point margin over ABS-CBN’s 30.9 points.

TV5 finished the month with only 16.1 share points.

The lead of 4.1 points meant that GMA had almost 155,000 more TV households from all over the country attuned to its programming.

Using an assumption of five viewers per household, the lead would translate to GMA having about 774,000 more viewers over ABS-CBN.

Compared with TV5, GMA had about 709,000 more TV households, or an estimated advantage of roughly 3.5 million more viewers.

In Total Urban Luzon, GMA scored 38.8 share points, higher than ABS-CBN’s 26.1 points and TV5’s 17.1 points.

The margin of 12.7 points over ABS-CBN meant that GMA was the preferred channel of about 368,000 more households or almost 2 million more viewers over its competitors.

GMA’s 21.7-point lead over TV5 translates to an estimated 630,000 more households, or 3 million more viewers.

In viewer-rich Mega Manila, GMA said it had 39.5 share points, again higher than ABS-CBN’s 24.8 points, and TV5’s 17.8.

GMA won more than 300,000 more households, or over 1.6 million more viewers over ABS-CBN using an average of five viewers per TV household. Compared with TV5, GMA had nearly half a million more households, and more than 2.4 million more viewers in the said area.

GMA uses data from Nielsen TV Audience Measurement.

In the second quarter of the year, GMA’s profit dropped by 37.5 percent to P521 million from last year’s P834 million.

This brought its first-half net income to P1.05 billion, or 38 percent lower than last year’s P1.69 billion.

Revenues in the second quarter amounted to P3.59 billion, also down by 8.6 percent from P3.93 billion last year.