• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

In January 2026 -- now for the 11th month in a row -- YouTube has maintained its top position in the Nielsen Media Distributor measure with a 12.5% share -- up from 10.8 a year ago.

Walt Disney is now in second place.  It slipped one-tenth of a share point to 11.9% -- versus an industry-leading 12.0% in January 2025.

The Nielsen index amasses total viewership for a media company for all its TV network/streaming platforms.

Three other large legacy media companies witness bigger declines: Paramount, 8.2% (8.9% in 2025); Fox Corp., 7.4% (7.6%); and Warner Bros. Discovery, which took a biggest hit, now at 5.5% (6.1% in January 2025).

Only NBCUniversal posted an increase -- including the Versant Media company spinoff of its cable networks. NBC plus Versant was at an 8.5% share (vs. 8.1% year ago).

Nielsen says NBC benefited from major viewing of NFL games carried on NBC and streamer Peacock. Peacock also got a boost a new season of its original series “The Traitors.” In addition, NBCU’s Telemundo affiliates had a big 13% increase vs. December 2025 in viewership, driven by sports reality series “Exatlón.”

For historical comparison purposes, Nielsen said it is now offering both a combination NBCU-Versant share number as well as a separate share numbers for NBC (6.4%) and Versant (2.0%).

Other major streaming platforms also showed gains with Netflix at 8.8% (vs. 8.6% a year ago), Amazon at 4.1% (vs. 3.7%), and the Roku Channel at 3.0% (vs. 2.1%).