Linear TV Viewing Drops Below 50% of U.S. Television Usage for First Time, Streaming Hits Record High: Nielsen
15.08.2023 - 12:05
/ variety.com
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Broadcast and cable TV dropped to a new low in July 2023 in terms of total share among American viewers — dropping below 50% of total TV usage in the United States for the first time, according to Nielsen. Meanwhile, streaming services like YouTube and Netflix accounted for a record 38.7% of total U.S. TV usage, the category’s largest share reported in Nielsen’s The Gauge monthly report to date.
Overall TV usage increased 0.2% during the month (and usage among audiences under 18 was up 4%). In July, cable’s share fell below 30% for the first time, losing a full share point to stand at 29.6%. Broadcast usage fell 3.6%, down 0.8 points.
On a year-over-year basis, broadcast viewing was down 5.4% (-1.5 points), and cable viewing was down 12.5% (-4.8 points). Among streaming platforms, three achieved record high shares of TV usage in July: YouTube (excluding YouTube TV) increased 5.6% vs. June, and its share climbed to 9.2% of total TV usage — the largest of all platforms.
Netflix viewing increased 4.2% vs. June, which brought it to 8.5% of total TV usage. Amazon Prime Video viewing was up 5% vs.
June to represent 3.4% of total TV usage (+0.2 pts.) in July. The “other” category on Nielsen’s monthly TV usage estimates includes unmeasured video on demand (VOD), audio streaming, video gaming and Blu-ray/DVD playback. The two most-streamed titles in July were licensed shows: “Suits” (pictured above), the legal drama starring Patrick J.
Adams, Gabriel Macht and Meghan Markle, on Netflix and Peacock; and Australian kids’ animated favorite “Bluey” (Disney+). Those shows combined for 23 billion viewing minutes, with “Suits” accounting for nearly 18 billion on its own. For comparison, Netflix original
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