Streaming Leads Viewing In August; Broadcast, Cable Make Gains: Nielsen

Streaming TV’s viewing share continued to lead in August -- as it did in July -- with broadcast and cable also posting some gains, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge measure.

At the same time, total time spent watching TV in August was down slightly compared to July among persons two years and older, Nielsen says, although it did not provide specific details. 

Broadcast was the only platform to rise in share (22.1%) as well as actual viewing versus July. Nielsen says “viewing volume” for broadcast was up 1.6% from the previous month.

Summertime programs -- for example, CBS’ “Big Brother” -- helped broadcast TV, while cable inched up in share to 34.5% (vs. 34.4% in July), but was down in viewing volume -- 0.4%.

Streaming grew in share, landing at 35.0% in August (up from 34.8% in July), with viewing volume basically flat -- down by 0.1% versus the previous month.

Nielsen did not disclose viewing volume results for each platform.

One of the stronger streaming stories for July is HBO Max --- which recorded a 13.7% increase in viewing volume and a record-high 1.2% in overall streaming share, largely due to the recent release of HBO’s “House of the Dragon.” HBO Max had a 1.0% share in July.

Netflix slipped to a 7.6 share (down from 8.0% the previous month), as viewing for its hit “Stranger Things” series declined. 

YouTube tied Netflix (when including YouTube TV) had a 7.6% share. Viewing on YouTube TV -- the virtual pay TV service -- grew 14.9% in August compared to July. Nielsen said it represents 11.9% of YouTube viewing usage.

Overall viewing time on YouTube grew 2.8%.

Hulu and its sister service Disney+ each rose one-tenth of a percentage in share in August -- 3.7% and 1.9%, respectively -- while Amazon Prime Video slipped one-tenth to 2.9%.

Linear streaming -- from pay TV providers like cable and satellite services -- came in at a 4.2% share in the streaming category.

 

1 comment about "Streaming Leads Viewing In August; Broadcast, Cable Make Gains: Nielsen".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, September 15, 2022 at 12:51 p.m.

    Wayne, it's good to see that Nielsen is now telling us that  some of that streaming activity  ----4% of it----is actually linear content being streamed.  This is the kind of added detail that is needed to provide a clearer picture. In this case, we see that "linear TV" ----broadcast TV and cable---has a 56.6% share of all viewing attained via "linear" means but when streaming exposure is added the total share for linear TV content rises to about 58%.

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