Nielsen‘s latest breakdown of U.S. TV usage includes a notable milestone. In July, less than half of the traffic measured by Nielsen went to linear TV channels. It’s the first time that format has dipped below a 50% share.
According to Nielsen’s latest ratings, cable channels accounted for 29.5% of TV usage in July, while broadcast channels claimed a 20% share of the pie. Neither of those formats claimed as much watch time as streaming, which reached 37.7% of TV usage. The remaining 12.8% went to video games, physical media playback, and several other uses.
The decline of linear TV channels has been forecasted for years. As digital ad budgets have grown at the expense of TV counterparts, online video platforms have increased their reach across multiple formats. A year ago, streaming platforms eclipsed cable channels in Nielsen’s TV usage breakdown.
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YouTube has played a huge role in that shift. The leading video platform has increased its presence on TV screens through several initiatives, including the arrival of Shorts on YouTube TV and the launch of a service that sells a la carte streaming subscriptions.
In Nielsen’s latest report, YouTube accounted for 9.2% of all TV usage. That was the biggest share afforded to any single platform.
Netflix ranked second on that list, Hulu was third, Amazon Prime Video came in fourth, and Disney+ rounded out the top five. While those streamers lagged behind YouTube in terms of total TV traffic, they distributed some of the most-watched individual programs of the month, including Suits (available on Netflix and Peacock), Bluey (Disney+), and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan(Prime Video).
