May Streaming Grows To Best Viewing Share Ever At 39%, FAST Sees Strong Gains
- by Wayne Friedman , June 18, 2024
Streaming platforms' share of the overall TV viewing market in May grew to its biggest share to date, according to Nielsen, at 38.8% in terms of total day TV usage for persons two years and older.
This was up 0.4 share point from April -- and 2.4 share points year-over-year.
Even accounting for methodological changes since the May 2021 inception of Nielsen’s measurement for all linear TV and streaming viewing usage, it says “streaming simply cannot be stopped.”
In the streaming category, YouTube tied its highest share level -- with 9.7%.
Netflix maintained its strong second place in streaming share -- at 7.6%. The race for third place continued to be neck and neck between Hulu (3.1%) and Amazon Prime Video (3.0%).
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Below a two-point share sit Disney+ (1.8%), Tubi (1.8%), Roku Channel (1.5%), Max (1.2%), Paramount+ (1.2%), Peacock (1.1%) and Pluto (0.9%).
FAST channels (Tubi, The Roku Channel, and Pluto TV) collectively rose to their highest level -- a 4.1% of TV usage. Year-over-year, Tubi usage grew 43% and Roku Channel was 35% higher.
While linear TV did decline again year-over-year, Nielsen noted the share point fall year-over-year was less than half that of the same month-to-month period from 2022 to 2023 -- a 3.4-point drop versus a 7.0-point fall in the most recent period.
In typical fashion for this time of year, overall TV usage was down in May versus the previous month -- 2.4%. Still, year-over-year, May 2024 inched up 1.4%.
Taking a look at specific programming, Nielsen says “Young Sheldon” on all broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms posted the best TV entertainment program series result -- with 6 billion viewing minutes.
The comedy, which has concluded its original episode run, aired on CBS Television Network, and had repeat airings on local TV station syndication, cable networks TBS and Nick-At-Nite, and streamers Paramount+, Netflix and Max. '
Nielsen notes the 6 billion viewing minutes in May were split almost exactly in half between traditional linear channels and streamers.
Netflix’s new third season of “Bridgerton” was the best-performing streaming series -- with 5.5 billion viewing minutes.
What's really interesting is a comparison between the latest Nielsen findings--which unlike the big data ACR panels measures TV set usage in all kinds of TV homes on all kinds of sets, is how big the "flight" from linear TV has been. Way back in May 2021, streaming had a 26 share using the old way of calclating it. This probably translated into a 22 share if tabulated the current way with vMVPD usage not included. The latest Nielsen---for May 2024---three years later---- has streaming at a 39 share. That's about a 75% increase. However, if we compare the most recent percentage to what was reported 12 months ago the increase is only 7%. In other words the pace of the great migration has slowed dramatically suggesting that most of those who were most likely to switch their viewing time to streaming have done so.
It's also interesting to look at the shares of the various streaming players over the past three years. Clearly the big winner has been YouTube, with an increae of about 70%, while Netflix is up around 25%. But many of the other contenders seem not to have gained ground at all---the main exception, this past year, at least, being Tubi.