Linear TV Viewing Drops Below 50% Of U.S. Television Usage

Streaming hits record high, a Nielsen study says.

According to Nielsen, broadcast and cable TV usage in the United States has dropped below 50% for the first time, suggesting that linear TV may be dying. In contrast, according to Nielsen’s monthly report, streaming services like YouTube and Netflix have reached a record high of 38.7% of total TV usage, making them the most popular choice.

In July, cable’s share fell to 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 was down 12.5% (-4.8 points).

Among streaming platforms, three achieved record-high shares of TV usage in July: YouTube increased 5.6% in one month, and its share climbed to 9.2% of total TV usage, the largest of all platforms. Netflix viewing increased by 4.2%, which brought it to 8.5% of total TV usage. Amazon Prime Video viewing was up 5%, a total of 3.4% TV usage (+0.2 pts.).

In July, the most-streamed titles were the licensed shows Suits and Bluey. Suits, a legal drama featuring Patrick J. Adams, Gabriel Macht, and Meghan Markle, was available on both Netflix and Peacock. Bluey, a popular Australian animated show for kids, was exclusively available on Disney+. Together, these shows accumulated a total of 23 billion minutes of viewing. Of this, Suits contributed nearly 18 billion minutes.

Source: Variety