Advanced Television

Nielsen: Streaming takes largest US TV share to date

April 16, 2025

After several record-setting months, Nielsen’s March 2025 report of The Gauge revealed that television viewing trends have started to settle into more seasonal patterns.

According to the report, the NCAA tournament helped drive cable’s traditional March increase, the Oscars stood out for broadcast, and in a competitive month of high-profile streaming releases, the top programmes in March were represented by seven different streaming platforms.

Time spent watching TV in March was down 6 per cent compared to February as seasonal shifts take effect, but it did not halt the momentum of streaming. With 43.8 per cent of TV usage in March, the streaming category increased its share of the viewing pie versus February (+0.3 pt.) in an exceptionally competitive month as prominent new releases drove viewership across a number of platforms.

Most notably—and for the first time ever in a monthly Gauge report – the 10 most-watched streaming titles in March were distributed by seven different platforms: Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, Max, Paramount+ Netflix and Apple TV+.

Now included under Warner Bros Discovery Streaming, Max notched the largest month over month increase among streaming services and jumped 6 per cent in March, largely on the strength of The White Lotus. Meanwhile, YouTube achieved a new platform record for a second consecutive month with 12 per cent of total TV watch-time (+0.4 pt.), despite slightly lower viewing levels compared to February.

Cable’s share of viewing benefited from college basketball’s favourite time of year: March Madness. Cable climbed to 24 per cent of TV usage (+0.8 pt.), buoyed by a 29 per cent lift in cable sports viewing and another strong month of cable news viewership. Atop the most-watched cable sports telecasts in March were NCAA Men’s Elite Eight games between Alabama-Duke and Texas Tech-Florida on TBS. Meanwhile, cable news programmes accounted for seven of the top 10 cable telecasts, led by Fox News Channel’s coverage of the presidential address to a Joint Session of Congress on March 4th, which drew 11 million viewers on the network and over 36 million viewers in total.

The bright spot for the broadcast category this month was ABC’s presentation of The Oscars on March 2nd, which was the most-watched programme in March with 20.3 million viewers across ABC and the simulcast on Hulu, illustrating the latest success of multiplatform distribution. Similar to last month’s Super Bowl on Fox + Tubi, viewers that streamed ‘Hollywood’s Biggest Night’ on Hulu were three times as likely to be 18-34 and twice as likely to be 35-49 versus audiences that watched via other means, underscoring the effectiveness of cross-channel content availability with younger audience demographics.

Across the rest of the broadcast category, scripted dramas accounted for 28 per cent of its total viewing in March. Tracker on CBS represented five of the top 10 broadcast telecasts, with each averaging over 10 million viewers (L+7) despite stiff competition from several March Madness games. The absence of football was evident this month, however, as broadcast viewership fell by 9 per cent versus February to finish the month at 20.5 per cent of TV.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Consumer Behaviour, Content, Research

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