Streaming Crosses 40% of All TV Viewing for First Time; Disney+, Max, Others See Big Increases
Streaming Crosses 40% of All TV Viewing for First Time; Disney+, Max, Others See Big Increases
Nielsen’s latest update has plenty of good news for Netflix as well, which now owns more total TV viewing than Paramount’s streaming and TV outlets combined.
The highs just keep getting higher for the medium of streaming. The television ratings firm Nielsen has released its monthly The Gauge report, which measures how American viewers are watching TV and which platforms are receiving the most viewership. In the month of June, streaming accounted for 40.3% of all TV watched in the United States, the first time it has ever accounted for more than 40% of viewing time in the history of The Gauge report.
Key Details:
- Disney+, Tubi, Prime Video, Netflix, and Hulu all accounted for more than 2% of all TV watched in June.
- Netflix is now fourth among all media companies in aggregated TV usage.
- The onset of summer vacation has helped streaming rise, as kids have more time to stream content.
Nielsen found that four streaming services saw double-digit increases in usage as compared to the previous month: Disney+ (+14.8%), Tubi (+14.7%), Netflix (+11.8%) and Max (+11.0%). YouTube hit a new all-time record of total TV usage at 9.9%, as did Tubi when it hit the 2% mark during the month of June.
Click to expand image.
Accounting for 1% of all TV watched is an impressive feat for any streamer, so it’s even more encouraging for Netflix, Disney+, Tubi, Hulu, and Prime Video to hit the 2% target. Much of the increase in ratings for streamers can be chalked up to more young viewers out of school on summer vacation watching TV; young audiences drove a 2.1% increase in overall TV watching in June.
Nielsen’s data held even more good news for Netflix, which is responsible for 8.4% of TV viewing in the U.S. last month. That number puts it fourth on the list of aggregated TV usage by company, ahead of legacy media companies like Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount, despite the fact that that they own cable channels — and in Paramount’s case, a broadcast network — as well as streaming services. Disney is the top aggregated media company overall, accounting for 10.% of all TV watched when combining its streaming services and cable/broadcast channels.
Click to expand image.
Can Streaming’s Ratings Success Continue?
The ratings increases for streaming as measured by Nielsen improve on what has already been a good summer for streaming platforms. Streaming also set a usage record in May, and new episodes of shows like “House of the Dragon” and “The Bear” have gotten viewers re-engaged with streamers after the 2023 Hollywood strikes left release schedules looking a bit bare for a few months.
Despite all of this success, streaming services shouldn’t be declaring victory over broadcast and cable TV in the battle for viewership supremacy just yet. That’s because, as I argued last summer, streaming services have yet to overcome the ratings that linear TV channels pull in during football season.
Still, streaming is growing closer. Last July, the record high for streaming usage was 38.7% of all TV watched, and that record has already been surpassed twice in 2024. In other words, streaming usage is continuing to expand past historical highs, and even though summer is traditionally a time when streamers see more traffic, the increases point to a trend of cord-cutting and increased comfort with streamers among audiences overall.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”