The return of fall sports – including college and professional football – drove ad-supported viewing’s Q3 peak share of TV time in September. Viewing of content with ads accounted for 74.7% of overall U.S. TV viewership that month, according to Nielsen’s Q3 Ad Supported Gauge tracker.
Across the three-month period running from the end of June through September 28 viewing of TV content with ads accounted for 72.9% of total TV time, where earlier sports-free summer months impacted the ad-supported share.
The share of ad-supported TV viewing across Q3 was down less than one point compared to the 73.6% share in Q2 – but TV content with ads still by far captured the majority of viewing in the U.S. versus ad-free content, per the quarterly snapshot. When looking only at adults 18 and over in the U.S., ad-supported viewership accounted for a 75% share of TV viewing in Q3.
During the period, streaming captured 46.4% of the ad-supported TV viewing pie, with cable accounting for 27.2% and broadcast accounting for 26.4%.
Nielsen in its release pointed to how seasonality can impact the ad-supported share of viewing as it does overall TV consumption. Streaming’s consumption share was strongest in July, which the measurement provider attributes to kids and teens being on vacation and a lighter month for ad-supported content, as streaming provides more ad-free programming options (to that point only ad-free streaming is excluded from the ad-supported category, which otherwise encompasses broadcast and independents as well as cable and ad-supported streaming). But as live sports like NFL football returned in September so did the overall share of ad-supported TV viewing.
Considering advertising is a long-time mainstay of broadcast and cable and only made a bigger entrance on streaming in more recent years across major platforms, the category still captured a notable share of ad-supported viewing in September at 44.4%, although decreased 3.6 share points from streaming’s Q3 peak in July of 48% . That dip aligns with the seasonal shift of more live sports (and the viewership and ads that come alongside the premium content) coming back to TV on different distribution modes. Broadcast, which typically offers lineups with live sports, gained 4.4 share points for ad-supported viewing in September, increasing to about 29%. Cable’s share remained fairly flat over the period, per Nielsen.
While streaming’s share of ad-supported viewing dipped a bit in September it’s worth noting that this fall saw two major streaming launches that for the first time unlocked certain live sports-focused linear channels from the pay TV ecosystem and made them available via direct-to-consumer apps. That includes Disney’s flagship ESPN DTC product and Fox’s Fox One streamer, which both debuted in late August.
Update: StreamTV Insider heard back from Nielsen and confirmed that viewership for the ESPN DTC app would be included in the ad-supported streaming category, however the Fox One app would not. That’s due to Nielsen classifying Fox One as a virtual MVPD. Since most vMVPD viewing credits to the broadcast and cable categories in the share tracker, the company excludes vMVPD and MVPD apps from the streaming portion of both The Gauge and the Ad-Supported Gauge.
Recent data released by research firm Antenna estimated the ESPN product generated around 3 million signups from the August 21 launch through October 31, while Fox One captured an estimated 1.7 million signups over the same period.
And more major sports (and ads alongside them) continue to shift to streaming, including the NBA, which under new media rights deals have games available on streaming this season via Disney, NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Amazon’s Prime Video.
Article updated with information about Nielsen's category classifications of the ESPN and Fox One apps.