• by Wayne Friedman , January 28, 2025

Walt Disney inched up to a leading 11.2% share in December in total TV usage in Nielsen’s "Media Distributor Gauge."

For Disney -- which was up 6% from November (11.1%) -- the current reading represents the company’s fourth straight month topping the measure.

Disney benefited from heavy NFL and college football airings on ESPN, kids show “Bluey” on Disney+, a 45% viewing gain on the FX Network and heavy movie marathons on Freeform.

Close behind Disney is YouTube, gaining 7% to 11.1% share (up from 10.8%).

This was the tenth straight month for YouTube in the second-highest distributor position.

Netflix grew 14% over November to a 8.5% share, for fourth place -- boosted by two NFL Christmas Day games and popular TV series “Carry-On,” “Squid Game” and “Virgin River.”

The big loser was Fox Corp., sinking to a 14% to a 7.1% share due to unfavorable comparisons to November, which had the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers/New York Yankees and the Presidential election period. Fox’s November share was 8.6%.

Fox posted the highest-viewed show of the December period -- at 38.5 million viewers and 8.2 billion viewing minutes -- a Thanksgiving day NFL game between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys.

Due to its improving NFL “Thursday Night Football” games -- five contests held during December -- Amazon share rose to 4.0% from 3.7% in November, and 3.6% in October.

The "Media Distributor Gauge" amasses total broadcast, cable and streaming consumption by a company that occurs on a TV screen, to offer a holistic view.

December interval dates were from 11/25/2024 through 12/29/2024.