• by Joe Mandese , 9 hours ago

As someone who has covered Nielsen ratings for much of my career, I can tell you the natural inclination for a trade journalist is to cover them like a horse race: someone finishes first, second, third, etc.

Based on an analysis of nearly five years of monthly press releases, it appears that's how Nielsen has been spinning the story too. And the winner by -- way more than a nose -- has been streaming.

We'll find out exactly how accurate those photo finishes have been on March 24 when Nielsen publishes a restated version of its monthly Gauge, but based on a keyword analysis of the past five years, "streaming" has been mentioned 850 times -- more than twice the combined number (740) of "broadcast" and "cable" have been mentioned.

The bias makes obvious sense, given the industry's transfixion -- and the inherent news value -- of "growth" vs. "decline."

The releases set a Nielsen personal best "record" of 85, showed some "momentum" and noted "historic" "milestones."

I'm not sure whether and how all that spin can be restated, even if the numbers underlying all those press releases are, but Nielsen will probably let the new numbers speak for themselves and double down on its background guidance:

"In the short term, you can expect to see a lift for cable and broadcast viewing. But the long term trends will still hold for cable, broadcast and streaming. Streaming is still expected to grow, as long term trends have indicated."

At presstime, it was unclear whether Nielsen will also retroactively correct the historic spin published by five years of inaccurate Gauge releases, but at the very least it should restate the 10 months since it published May 2025 estimates showing streaming had effectively taken the horse race lead (see below).