Simply 4 years in the past, scores service Nielsen launched its month-to-month The Gauge stories monitoring TV viewership between broadcast tv, cable, and streaming. In that point, streaming viewership has gotten even perhaps greater than you understand. And for its Might 2025 report, it hit a brand new milestone.
Nielsen says that for the primary time because it has been monitoring by way of The Gauge, the period of time individuals spend watching TV by way of streaming companies has surpassed the quantity they watch conventional broadcast tv and cable TV — mixed.
Streaming accounted for 44.8 p.c of all TV viewership within the U.S., whereas cable was simply 24.1 p.c and broadcast was 20.1 p.c. Examine that to Might 2021, when streaming was simply 26 p.c of all TV viewing, and cable was up at 39 p.c. Nielsen says it’s a 71 p.c improve in general TV utilization for streaming. And should you can consider it, solely half of that’s out of your child watching “Bluey” episodes on repeat.
Lower than a 12 months in the past, we wrote that streaming broke one other document and for the primary time was greater than cable ever was (or at the least since 2021), however now it’s clawing away at each broadcast and cable. It ought to be a shock to nobody that viewership for broadcast and cable is dwindling, however Nielsen says the 2 legacy types of media present “shocking resilience.”
Again in 2021, simply 5 streaming companies had greater than 1 p.c of all eyeballs watching TV: Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Prime Video, and Disney+. Now that checklist has grown to 11 platforms which have a constant share of viewing, together with 5.7 p.c of all viewing coming from FAST channel platforms Pluto, Tubi, and Roku Channel. Paramount+ and Peacock have additionally secured stable market shares, as has the mixed viewing of HBO Max and Discovery+ (although Apple TV+ remains to be absent from crossing Nielsen’s 1 p.c threshold).
YouTube remains to be king, however Netflix’s viewing share has gone up 27 p.c since Might 2021 and this 12 months had 7.5 p.c of all TV viewing. A few of Netflix’s increase got here from its two Christmas Day NFL video games final 12 months, which was the most important streaming day in historical past, based on Nielsen. The inflow of sports activities to locations like Peacock and Prime Video will solely widen the hole. Nonetheless, Nielsen says that when soccer and a few hit fall exhibits come again later within the 12 months, it’s seemingly broadcast could quickly win again a better share.
So what do all these numbers imply for creators? It means the shift away from broadcast and cable is going on sooner than even individuals thought, and that’s going to impression the consolidation of firms which can be proper now separating their cable channels from their studio and streaming companies. It additionally suggests creators ought to be paying extra consideration to FAST, as there are lots of eyeballs there on your work.
Check out the complete report right here.