Audiences love broadcast shows, but prefer to watch them on streaming
Audiences love broadcast shows, but prefer to watch them on streaming
New data from Luminate shows that broadcast TV titles are highly popular among streaming audiences. But why not just streams those episodes live?
What’s your favorite show on TV these days? For many Americans, the answer isn’t some prestige streaming title, but rather a drama, comedy series, or reality show from an over-the-air broadcast channel like ABC or CBS.
Those are the findings of a new study from Luminate, which shows that programming from broadcast channels remains extremely popular, even if it is moving from linear channels to streaming platforms. But why aren’t people watching these episodes as they air live with an antenna or cable, satellite, or live TV streaming subscription? The answer comes down to what I’ve dubbed the three Cs: cost, convenience, and commercials.
Overall, Luminate found that five of the top 10 most-streamed TV seasons in the United States so far in 2026 were sourced from broadcast channels. That includes the No. 1 show on the list, the “Yellowstone” spinoff series “Marshals,” which has accrued more than 13 billion streaming minutes in the first half of the year.
Other titles sourced from broadcast channels that have become major streaming hits in the past six months include “Tracker,” “The Rookie,” “Will Trent,” and “Survivor.” All of these titles air on CBS or ABC, and thus stream on Paramount+ or Hulu, respectively. Each title has attracted at least 8.5 billion streaming minutes in the first half of 2026, per Luminate.
Click chart to expand.
The data points to the conclusion that streaming services might want to start looking into the past as they try to formulate new shows, as broadcasters clearly still know how to draw an audience. But it also begs the question, why are people so willing to wait for these shows to stream the next day on their respective on-demand platforms instead of watching them live?
The first reason is cost. Live TV streaming services like DIRECTV, Fubo, and YouTube TV that carry local broadcast channels in a large number of channel packages usually cost at least $55 per month, even for genre-based plans that don’t offer all the channels traditionally found in a pay-TV package.
A Hulu or Paramount+ subscription, on the other hand, costs less than $20 per month, even for a premium ad-free tier. For most customers, the choice between paying $50+ per month to watch a show live or to wait a day for that episode to be available on an on-demand streamer for a fraction of the cost is an easy one to make.
The second factor at play here is convenience. Trying to set aside 30 to 60 minutes on a specific evening every week to watch a TV program live is surprisingly difficult, especially for families with kids. Streaming services, on the other hand, carry episodes on demand, so viewers can sit back and watch whenever it’s most convenient for them, instead of being forced to adhere to the network’s schedule.
Of course, most live TV streaming services offer a DVR feature that allows customers to record episodes for later playback. But that brings us back to the question of cost. Why pay $55+ per month for live TV if all you’re doing is recording a show to watch on demand later, when you can find the same episode on demand for a fraction of the price on a streaming service?
Finally, there’s the issue of commercials. While streaming services are increasing ad loads in general, none of them has yet surpassed broadcast TV in terms of commercials per hour. From the viewer’s perspective, having to put up with three to four minutes of streaming ads per half-hour TV episode is a much better option than the nearly 10 minutes of ads shown alongside that episode on broadcast TV. And, of course, all on-demand streamers offer ad-free plans, in case you are especially commercial-adverse.
The data from Luminate shows that streamers should take some lessons from the continued popularity of broadcast TV titles. But as Luminate’s data shows, viewers are quite willing to wait for new episodes to arrive on streaming services instead, due in large part to factors like cost, convenience, and commercial frequency.
Paramount Plus
Paramount+ is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 40,000+ TV show episodes from BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., and more. Get free access with a Walmart+ subscription.
Paramount+ includes “1883,” “Tulsa King,” “Star Trek: Discovery,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and “PAW Patrol.” Subscribers can watch the NFL, college football, The Masters, college basketball, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, Serie A, and NWSL. The service also offers the option to watch your live CBS affiliate. The upgraded ad-free package includes premium movies and shows from Showtime.