• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 29, 2023

Meaningful tipping points don't happen all that often in the TV industry, but you know them when you see them.

That's how I felt in June 2011 when long-time CBS research chief Dave Poltrack revealed findings of a proprietary tracking study showing that pioneering streaming service Netflix was taking a share of prime-time viewing akin to a “mid-size cable network” and was growing fast.

Twelve years later, Netflix is the size of many mid-size cable networks (see chart below), while other streamers are at least the size of a good-size cable network, including one just added to the universe by Nielsen: Roku.

I don’t know how it slipped by our coverage when Nielsen announced Roku's inclusion earlier this month, but I made a mental note to come back to it, if and when I had a reason to write about the TV universe, which I am this week vis a vis filling in on “TV Watch.”

According to Nielsen's May data, Roku currently has a 1.1% share of total day viewing across streaming, cable and broadcast TV.

“The Roku channel had a particularly strong May interval, increasing 14% vs. April to initiate [Nielsen] coverage with a 1.1 share of total television usage time,” Nielsen's Brian Fuhrer said during his monthly “The Gauge” video presentation, in which he inexplicably is seen wearing a sling on a busted wing.

Fuhrer disclosed that Nielsen did “implement an enhancement” to “more accurately categorize original content streamed over cable set-top boxes” from another category to streaming, implying that the methodological change may have had something to do with Roku's boost.

While he did not explicitly spell out how the methodological shift impacted other streaming services, Fuhrer noted that “Netflix increased by 9.2%” and “YouTube continued its upward trajectory by adding 0.4 share points to take once again the overall top streaming slot with 8.5% share.”

Fuhrer also teased what might happen as the summer progresses and the broadcast and cable networks ease up on their original programming.

“It will be very interesting to see if the streaming platforms double down on releasing content to take advantage of this opportunity,” he said, adding, “or to budget the introductions into the fall traditional season.”

I’m not a Nielsen thought leadership executive, but if he wanted to ask me, I would be willing to go out on the line and bet that the most ascendant programming service will turn out to be Streamberry.

But that's a "TV Watch" column for a universe that is entirely different from the one Nielsen exists in.