• by Wayne Friedman , 83 minutes ago

Now 30.5% of U.S. households get TV content only through streaming providers, with no access to linear TV -- up one percentage point (29.5%) over the full year 2025.

This comes from a midyear 2026 release of the ARF’s DASH TV Universe study. The results identify these homes as “digital-only” households, with no access to traditional pay TV, or TV antenna.

Additionally, the study also found homes with only a connection to TV via an antenna increased one percentage point to 17.1% over the same period.

At the same time, longterm trends for linear and pay TV penetration continued to show declines.

Earlier this year, DASH (Device and Account Sharing) was accredited by the Media Rating Council for TV universe estimation and adopted by Nielsen for ratings calculation.

Beginning this month, DASH will be disclosing two, 12-month data releases a year. Starting next month, Nielsen will be releasing viewership data pegged to the latest DASH Universe results.

The research study from the ARF comes in partnership with National Opinion Research Center  at the University of Chicago.