Streaming accounted for 44.8% of all TV viewing in the U.S. in May, according to Nielsen, narrowly surpassing for the first time the combined monthly usage of linear broadcast and cable, which accounted for 44.2% of domestic TV watching.
In May 2021, the first month for which Nielsen published its monthly usage share graphic, The Gauge, SVODs, FASTs and AVODs accounted for just 26% of usage versus 64% for broadcasting and cable. Streaming usage has increased by 71% over that four-year span, Nielsen said.
At the time, YouTube was only starting its march to CTV supremacy, accounting for just 6% of “glass” usage. Last month, it led all connected TV competition with a 12.5% viewership share.
Meanwhile, usage of other streaming platforms has grown significantly. Fox’s free ad-supported Tubi, for example, announced on Tuesday that it has surpassed 100 million active users. Back in 2021, it only had about half (51 million) of that threshold.
In May 2021, only five streaming services exceeded a 1% of TV usage threshold. Last month, Nielsen tallied 11 such streaming platforms.
Even the well-entrenched Netflix, which hasn’t seen its market share metrics change all that much in four years, has grown, finishing 2024 with around 90 million users in the U.S. and Canada verses about 75 million in May 2021. According to Nielsen, Netflix’s U.S. viewership has increased by 27% since May 2021.
The growth of streaming comes as millennial and Gen Z consumers, who grew up with the internet, emerge as heads of households and make decisions as to what gets watched on the living-room TV set. But it’s also been driven by folks ages 65 and older, who according to Nielsen, are YouTube’s fastest growing CTV constituency.
The story, of course, is also about the erosion of traditional linear platforms, which have seen their content migrate to streaming along with their audiences. While broadcasting is down around 4.9 percentage points over the last four years, cable networks combined share has fallen nearly 15 points.
For broadcast and cable, it could have been worse, Nielsen said.
“While many expected this milestone to occur sooner, sporting events, news and new-season content have kept broadcasting and cable surprisingly resilient,” said Brian Fuhrer, senior VP of product strategy and thought leadership for Nielsen, in the short monthly video Nielsen publishes along with its Gauge ranker.