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Report: Streaming Accounted for 38% of TV Watched in November; Netflix, HBO Max Saw Most Gains

David Satin
David covers the biggest news stories, live events, premieres, and informational pieces for The Streamable. Before joining TS, he wrote extensively for Screen Rant and has years of experience writing about the entertainment and streaming industries. He's a Broncos fan, streams on his Toshiba Fire TV, and his favorites include "Andor," "Rings of Power," and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."
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David Satin

November is seen by many as the official start of the holiday season. Families gather for Thanksgiving, and many follow Turkey Day with the traditional holiday shopping blitz on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But according to the latest report from the television insights and audience-tracking firm Nielsen, November is also a big month for TV watching.

At least that was the case for November 2022, which saw domestic viewers spend 7.8% more time watching TV than they did in October. Streaming providers were a big beneficiary of this increase, as 38.2% of all TV watched in November came from a streaming source. The next-largest source of TV viewing was cable, which claimed 31.8% of total TV watching time.

Indeed, streaming has been slowly, but surely, increasing its share of total TV viewing time every month since February of 2022. At that time, streaming made up less than 30% of TV watched in the U.S., so its rate of growth is perhaps even more impressive than the fact that it now leads all TV sources.

Best yet for streamers, according to Nielsen, is the fact that each service followed a different path to success. Netflix, which saw its viewing volume in November rise at the highest rate of any service (13.1%), benefited from blockbuster original content, like “Wednesday,” “Manifest” and “The Crown.” The second-largest gainer in terms of viewing time was HBO Max, with a 12.2% increase. That service leaned on popular library content, including “Friends,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Game of Thrones.”

Live TV streaming also saw a surge in November. Live streamers accounted for 5.8% of total TV viewing last month, and 15.2% of total streaming. Similarly, broadcast TV was bolstered by live sports in November. A 10.2% surge in sports viewing, much of which was driven by the NFL, helped sports pull in 32% of all broadcast viewing. Meanwhile, news gained 14.6% more volume, driven no doubt by coverage of the midterm elections early in the month.

Cable viewing saw the smallest increase of any TV source, gaining just 4.2% over October, with feature film viewing up 32.7%. This means that people using cable to watch movies accounted for 18.7% of all cable viewing.

Most importantly, sports viewing volume on cable was down 16% from October, despite the beginning of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Live sports are widely seen as one of the few factors keeping pay-TV on its feet.

The findings from Nielsen likely won’t lead to any major changes in content trends, but they do provide further evidence that streaming is growing closer to its ultimate goal of slaying the pay-TV monster. With streaming usage up more than 41% year-over-year, the ultimate collapse of pay TV might not be too far down the line.

David Satin
David covers the biggest news stories, live events, premieres, and informational pieces for The Streamable. Before joining TS, he wrote extensively for Screen Rant and has years of experience writing about the entertainment and streaming industries. He's a Broncos fan, streams on his Toshiba Fire TV, and his favorites include "Andor," "Rings of Power," and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."
Read full bio ›
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