Streaming jumps to capture a third of television viewing
Streaming video surged to still another record share of television usage in the past month, maintaining a trend where it's set to soon become the top use of consumers' TV time.
Streaming usage took more than a third of TV usage in June, its latest record share according to "The Gauge" from Nielsen, the ratings giant's monthly macro look at TV delivery platforms. Streaming captured 33.7% of total TV consumption, and other formats hit their smallest shares yet: Cable fell, but still leads at 35.1%, and broadcast dipped to 22.4%. The share of "Other" usage (heavily videogaming) bounced back to 8.8% share of TV time.
Total time spent watching TV, in decline for a few months, rebounded by rising 2% in May, mainly led by an 8% increase in streaming volume in that time frame (and streaming time spent jumped 23.5% when compared to the same month a year ago).
Broadcast viewing unsurprisingly took a hit from the traditional end of the television season, with time spent down 6.7%. But cable is the category showing the largest year-over-year shifts, Nielsen notes, falling 5 percentage points in share and nearly 12% in viewing vs. June 2021.
That surge in streaming share lifted all the key streaming players in viewing time, and four of them hit record-high shares of viewing for the month: Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), YouTube and YouTube TV (NASDAQ:GOOG) (GOOGL), Amazon Prime Video (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Disney+ (NYSE:DIS).
As for streaming's 33.7% piece of the pie, Netflix (NFLX) led with nearly a full percentage point jump, to 7.7%; YouTube and YouTube TV (GOOG) (GOOGL) rose to 6.9% from 6.7%; Hulu (DIS) (CMCSA) dipped to 3.3% share from May's 3.4%; Prime Video (AMZN) rose to 2.9% from last month's 2.6%; Disney+ (DIS) rose to 2.0% share from the prior month's 1.7%; and HBO Max (WBD) held steady at 1% share.
Turning to weekly streaming ratings, Netflix's (NFLX) Stranger Things gave up its hold on the top spot, only to be supplanted by another popular show on the streamer, and Disney (DIS) made its latest Marvel splash. Stranger Things (NFLX) fell to No. 2 with a still-hefty 2.326B minutes streamed, topped only by The Umbrella Academy (NFLX), which streamed 2.454B minutes in Nielsen's most recent weekly numbers (for June 20-26).
They were followed by the streaming release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (DIS), which had made a splash at the box office just a couple of months ago. It streamed 1.43B minutes in its Disney+ debut, besting a couple of Netflix (NFLX) movies on the overall chart: Sing 2 at No. 4 with 1.267B minutes; and The Man from Toronto at No. 5, with 948M minutes.
Rounding out the top 10 on the overall streaming chart: No. 6, Obi-Wan Kenobi (DIS), 860M minutes; No. 7, Criminal Minds (NFLX), 732M minutes; No. 8, NCIS (NFLX), 726M minutes; No. 9, The Boys (AMZN), 712M minutes; and No. 10, CoComelon (NFLX), 619M minutes.
(Nielsen streaming ratings now incorporate viewing from six major streamers: Amazon Prime Video (AMZN), Apple TV+ (AAPL), Disney+ (DIS), HBO Max (WBD), Hulu (DIS) (CMCSA), and Netflix (NFLX).)
Pay TV distributors: Comcast (CMCSA), Charter (CHTR), Dish Network (DISH), Verizon FiOS (VZ), Optimum/Suddenlink (ATUS), Atlantic Broadband (OTCPK:CGEAF), Sparklight (CABO).
Relevant local broadcast tickers: Nexstar Media Group (NXST), Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI), Gray Television (GTN), Tegna (TGNA), E.W. Scripps (SSP). National broadcasters: ABC (DIS), NBC (CMCSA), CBS (PARA) (PARAA), Fox (FOX) (FOXA). And some ad-tech names tied to connected TV: The Trade Desk (TTD), Magnite (MGNI), PubMatic (PUBM), Criteo (CRTO), Roku (ROKU).