Streaming’s share of TV viewing reached a new high in the US last month, making up 43.5 percent of total TV viewing, according to Nielsen’s latest The Gauge report. In conjunction, linear TV viewing (broadcast and cable combined) fell to a low of 44.4 percent, suggesting it is only a matter of time before streaming overtakes traditional TV’s share of viewing on TV sets.
The split is notable for the inclusion of the Super Bowl in February, traditionally a high driver of audiences to linear TV. In February last year, broadcast and cable took a 50.9 percent share of TV viewing, making the day of the game the highest by viewing hours in The Gauge’s history.
While the day of this year’s Super Bowl fell just short of last year’s viewing by 500 million minutes (thanks in part to 2024’s game going into overtime), the total TV audience for the Super Bowl reached 127.7 million viewers, beating last year’s 123.7 million.
And streaming had a role to play in this audience bump, as reflected in the rise of streaming viewing across the month. This year saw the Super Bowl switch from Paramount to Fox, which simultaneously streamed the game on its free streaming service Tubi. The AVOD service took one-third of all US streaming viewership during the game, which in turn nudged Tubi’s total share of TV viewing up to 2 percent in February. This is twice the viewing share of Paramount+ in February 2024 when the SVOD service streamed the game.
Free play
Nielsen notes that the accessability of Tubi’s free platform contributed to this uplift in streaming for the Super Bowl, whereas Paramount+ requires a paid subscription. And while Paramount offered a free trial to attract 2.3 million new users for the game in 2024 (one-third of whom stuck around for a full subscription, according to Antenna), hosting the game on Fox’s free streaming service removed those barriers altogether.
“While previous Super Bowls have offered alternative streaming options, Tubi’s free and subscriptionless features provided a means for the Big Game to reach even more viewers,” said Nielsen. The measurement firm also found that those viewers who watched the game on Tubi skewed younger than the average Super Bowl audience, according to Nielsen, and were more likely to be women.
Overall in February however, YouTube and Netflix continued to take the lion’s share of streaming time in the US. YouTube viewing accounted for 11.6 percent of total TV viewing, up from 9.3 percent in February 2024, and made up almost 27 percent of total streaming time. Meanwhile Netflix rose to 8.2 percent of total TV viewing, growing from 7.8 percent in February 2024.
Netflix also claimed the top streaming title in February, with its thriller series The Night Agent capturing six billion viewing minutes across the month. The second-placed streaming show by viewing hours was family favourite Bluey (4.2 billion minutes) on Disney+, which combined with Disney’s Hulu was the third most-watched streaming service in February, with a 4.8 percent share of total US TV viewing.
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