Nielsen Benchmarks Ad-Supported At 72% Of All TV Viewing

by Wayne Friedman , May 1, 2025

In the first quarter of 2025, 72.4% of all total day TV viewing (linear TV and streaming) was on ad-supported platforms -- with 27.6% on ad-free platforms, Nielsen says.

Breaking this down further, linear TV had the bulk of ad-supported viewing -- at 58% -- with streaming platforms at 42.4%. Broadcast networks had a 28.7% share of ad-supported viewing, with cable TV networks at 28.9%.

Nielsen says the new measure comes in time for the upfront TV advertising market, which typically begins in June.

This is a new extension of "The Gauge" measure, which launched in May 2021. In April 2024, Nielsen expanded that measure to include The Media Distributor Gauge.

Nielsen also announced new media agency deals for its Nielsen One cross-platform measurement, adding GroupM, VaynerMedia, and Ocean Media.

Beginning May 1, Nielsen is starting a connected TV/CTV insights area on its Ad Intel platform, where buyers and sellers can track CTV ad spend across all major streaming platforms alongside linear TV and digital advertising spend.

Nielsen says its CTV insights cover 41 streaming platforms, representing more than 95% of the U.S. CTV market, which includes measurement of all major streaming apps.

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2 comments about "Nielsen Benchmarks Ad-Supported At 72% Of All TV Viewing".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, May 1, 2025 at 6:07 p.m.
Finally! And a good move by Nielsen. It will be interesting to see what happens to the "other" category in Nielsen's current Gauge reports which includes videogame usage as well as program content that couldn't be identified.
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Joshua Chasin from KnotSimpler, June 20, 2025 at 9:09 p.m.

A Couple of things.

1. are we saying that 42.4% of time spent with ad-supported TV was via streaming; or that 42% of time spend viewing ads was via streaming? I assume the former, which would suggest that the actual share of impressions delivered via streaming is lower than 42%, because streaming platforms tend to have lower spot loads.

2. Streaming accounts for 42.4% of 72.4% that is ad-supported, or 30.7% overall. The May Gauge reports that streaming accounted for a total of 44.8% of (I assume) total time spent, so the remaining 14.1% of total viewing that is streaming must come from the 27.6% that is ad-free viewing. This turns out to be 51% of ad-free (51% of 27.6% gives you that remaining 14.1%.)

this means that:

--49% of ad-free viewing is to linear TV. This surprises me (i'm not saying it's wrong; just that I find it surprising.)

--68% of streaming viewing time spent is ad-supported. That's higher than I'd have guessed, but given the relatively new ad tiers for NFLX, Disney+, and Prime, and the general buzz about the growth of AVOD, probably not surprising. I guess I'm surprised that it's not surprising.