Streaming hits new top share of TV usage, while linear viewing finds new low
demaerre
Television usage bumped up only slightly in July during traditional TV's down season -- but streaming's share of usage climbed to a record high even as live TV continued a downdraft.
Overall TV usage ticked up 0.2% in July from June, according to "The Gauge" from Nielsen, the ratings firm's monthly overall look at TV delivery platforms.
Streaming usage, though, bumped up 2.9% in terms of time spent -- that time is up 25.3% year-over-year -- and grew to its biggest share of TV usage ever, 38.7%. A year ago, streaming made up 31.4% of television usage.

At the same time, linear viewing (watching programs in real time on broadcast and cable) fell to below 50% share of TV usage for the first time, Nielsen noted. Cable viewing share dipped to a new low of 29.6% from last month's 30.6%, and Broadcast dropped to a new low of 20% from last month's 20.8%, for a combined 49.6%.
"Other usage" -- heavily videogaming, but also including such uses as viewing video discs -- grew to 11.6% share from last month's 10.9%, and the accelerated growth of Other and Streaming points to a summertime season when TV usage is more youth-driven, with children out of school.
Turning to the individual streaming platforms, while many services looked to original programming for growth over the past couple of years, some acquired-program hits have helped pace share changes in a more mature market.
Three streaming services hit record-high shares in July: YouTube (GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) remained the overall leader in share, rising to a 9.2% share from last month's 8.8%. Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) share rose to 8.5% from 8.2%. And Amazon Prime Video (NASDAQ:AMZN) hit a record-high share of 3.4%, good enough for fourth-best behind Hulu (NYSE:DIS) (CMCSA), which bumped up to 3.6% from 3.5%.
Filling in with other services: Disney+ (DIS) held steady with a 2% share of TV usage; Max (WBD) remained at 1.4%; FAST service Tubi (FOX) (FOXA) was steady at 1.4%; Peacock (CMCSA) dipped to 1.1% from 1.2%; Roku Channel (ROKU) rose to 1.1% from 1.0%; Paramount+ (PARA) (PARAA) was steady at 1.0%; and Pluto (PARA) (PARAA) held at 0.9%. "Other" streaming services lumped together were steady at 5.1% share.
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).

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