Nielsen's 'Gauge' Sees Slight February Declines In Streaming, Cable, Broadcast; Video Games Rise

Although the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics drove some key spikes in TV viewing in February -- for both streaming and linear TV -- all key categories in Nielsen's monthly “Gauge” took a hit.

Cable TV viewing share was at 35.4% (down from 35.6% in January) in total day usage.

Streaming also dipped slightly -- to 28.7% (from January 28.9%), while broadcast landed at 26% (down from 26.4%).

The second week of February posted a 38.9% share for sports programming for all of broadcast TV.

Only Nielsen’s "Other" category -- which includes unmeasured video-on-demand, streaming through cable set-top-box, video games and other TV device playback -- showed a strong uptick.That category rose almost one full percentage point to 1o.0% (from 9.1%).

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Nielsen says consumers here spent more time with video gaming -- especially during the Presidents' Day holiday period. This was driven by some new video-game releases including "Elden Ring," "Horizon Forbidden West," and "Destiny 2."

Individual streamers were mostly unchanged.

Netflix, the streaming viewing leader, slipped to a 6.4% share (from a 6.6), followed by YouTube at 5.7% and Hulu with 3.0%. Both remained at the same levels as in January.

Two other major players dropped one-tenth of a percentage point each: Amazon Prime Video, 2.3% (from 2.4%); and Disney+, 1.7% (from 1.8%).

The Gauge data comes from two separately weighted panels: Streaming data coming from a subset of streaming meter-enabled TV homes in Nielsen’s National TV panel and for linear TV data -- broadcast and cable -- coming from Nielsen's national TV panel.

The data comes from a combination of live program-plus seven days of time-shifted viewing (L7) for much of the month, and live program-plus-three days of time-shifted viewing (L3) for the most recent week.

1 comment about "Nielsen's 'Gauge' Sees Slight February Declines In Streaming, Cable, Broadcast; Video Games Rise".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, March 17, 2022 at 3:22 p.m.

    Basically, what Nielsen is reporting regarding streaming since last July hs been a steady holding pattern with this platform garnering about 28% of all viewing month after month. In contrast, broadcast TV has gained---but slightly---while cable's share---still the largest by far---is down a few points.

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