• by Wayne Friedman , March 18, 2025

Streaming TV platforms posted the best share results ever in February at 43.5% -- just behind legacy TV broadcast and cable's combined 44.4% share, according to Nielsen's Total TV/Streaming snapshot.

The month before streaming was at a 42.6% share to linear TV’s 46.9% share.

Streaming benefited in February, driven by rising usage of YouTube, the leader in overall streaming. YouTube grew 2.5% to a 11.6% share of all total TV viewing -- another record result.

Also benefiting streaming was free streaming service Tubi, which simulcast the Super Bowl with sister TV platform the Fox Television Network. Tubi grew 17% in the month to a 2.0% share, its best ever.

Nielsen says viewers watching Tubi during the Super Bowl were 38% more likely to be ages 18-34 than the total game average, and also skewed slightly female.

Although Super Bowl Sunday posted another record result --with  a record 110 billion viewing minutes on the day -- Nielsen says total time spent watching TV dropped from January. That month witnessed multiple day benefits from NFL post-season games and more NCAA football playoff games

Following Netflix’s record results in January (8.6%), the premium streaming service dipped to a 8.2% share in February in terms of total viewing share -- second place to YouTube. It posted the best streaming program of the month -- with 6 billion viewing minutes for its series “The Night Agent.”

February shares of broadcast and cable dipped from January to 21.2% for broadcast (from 22.5%) and 23.2% for cable (from 24.4%), due to less overall big event sports programs.

Other big broadcast programs for February included NBC’s “Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary” 16.5 million viewers and CBS’s “The Grammys” with 16.2 million viewers.

As a prime-time category, broadcast dramas accounted for the largest share of broadcast viewing in the month (27%), which was up 15% versus January. The biggest dramas on TV: CBS’ “Tracker” (10.6 million) and “Matlock” (9.4 million).