Peacock Cracks Most-Viewed Platforms in December as Streaming Continues to Dominate Landscape

The holiday season brings families together, and that means many people recently found themselves watching television with loved ones. And once the inevitable arguments over what to watch ended, it appears that most families landed on streaming services this past December, according to the most recent data from Nielsen. According to the numbers, streaming services made up 38.1% of total TV viewership during the final month of 2022, with cable and broadcast both close behind.

December saw a slight uptick in TV consumption, with a 0.3% increase over November. This was due in part to five separate days of over 100 billion viewing minutes, including Christmas Day. Chief among the categories of television usage was streaming, which maintained the top spot that it has held since July.

Among all streaming services, HBO Max found itself experiencing the largest increase in usage during the final month of the year, gaining a substantial 18.1% month over month. According to Nielsen, this was due to the popularity of new shows like “The White Lotus,” as well as beloved library titles like “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory.”

In regards to other streaming services, YouTube and Netflix remained the most popular overall, but NBCUniversal’s much-derided service Peacock made its first appearance in Nielsen’s monthly report. Thanks in no small part to its Spanish-language streaming of the World Cup, Peacock managed to achieve a 1% market share for the first time in its history. This comes following a year of great growth for Peacock, with such juggernauts as “Sunday Night Football” and “The Office” allowing it to gain the tiniest of footholds among the most popular platforms in streaming.

Broadcast and cable viewership both experienced steeper declines, of 3.7% and 2.4% respectively. Despite strong viewership for the World Cup, which began in November and ran into December, broadcast TV saw sharp declines in viewership of sports and dramas.

Both broadcast and cable saw an increase in feature film viewing, driven by the annual airing of holiday movies across many networks. While it has been in a steady freefall for some time, cable’s 30.9% share and broadcast’s 24.7% share are still fairly significant chunks of the market.

While cable and broadcast certainly remain extremely relevant in the television landscape, it appears that streaming has officially solidified its place as the most popular viewing option for American consumers. With streaming usage up 46.1% on a year-over-year basis in December, it’s safe to say that 2022 was a year of great success across the streaming landscape.