NFL Drives Another Monthly Streaming Record


Netflix's Christmas Day NFL games pushed the December streaming TV share to a new monthly record -- 47.5% of total TV viewing, according to Nielsen’s Total TV/Streaming Snapshot.

Previously, its best result was in July 2025 (47.3%), which was up 10% versus December 2024.

For Christmas Day, all streaming -- including the high-profile Netflix NFL games -- earned 55.1 billion viewing minutes, the best single-day record ever and up 8% from the previous record. This gave streaming for Christmas Day a 54% share of all TV viewing.

For December, Netflix was up to a 9% share, versus 8.5% a year ago.

Apart from the NFL, Netflix also made overall gains due to its hugely popular “Stranger Things" show -- the most-watched streaming title for the month, with 15 billion viewing minutes.

The industry's streaming platform leader YouTube grew to a 12.7% share (vs. 11.1% a year ago and 12.9% in November 2025).

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Other streamers made gains, with Amazon Prime Video up 4.3% (vs. 4.0% a year ago) and Roku Channel rising 3.0% (vs. 2.0%).

The new Paramount series "Landman" was the second-strongest streaming title after “Stranger Things” for the month -- at 6.2 billion minutes.

All of Paramount's streaming business (Paramount+, discovery+, Pluto) were up 10% to a 2.5% share versus November. Last year in December, Paramount+ had a 1.4% share.

Although the NFL also helped drive broadcast and cable TV viewing, their respective shares drifted lower versus a year ago -- 20.2% and 21.4%, respectively. Broadcast had 23.8%, with cable at 22.4%, in December 2024.

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