Streaming surpasses combined broadcast and cable viewing for the first time

telcodad

Streaming surpasses combined broadcast and cable viewing for the first time
By Ali McCadden, CNBC - June 17 2025
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/17/streaming-broadcast-cable-tv.html

Streaming has outpaced the combined share of broadcast and cable TV viewing for the first time ever, according to a new Nielsen report. Streaming represented 44.8% of total TV viewership in May, its largest share to date, while the combination of broadcast, with 20.1%, and cable, with 24.1%, represented 44.2% of TV viewing, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge monthly report.

Compared with this time four years ago, when Nielsen started its monthly reports, streaming has skyrocketed 71%, while broadcast and cable viewing have declined 21% and 39%, respectively, according to Nielsen.

“While many have expected this milestone to occur sooner, sporting events, news and new season content have kept broadcast and cable surprisingly resilient,” Brian Fuhrer, Nielsen’s senior vice president of product strategy and thought leadership, said in a recorded video statement. Fuhrer said streaming’s growth has been driven by three main factors: free ad-supported streaming TV offerings, also known as FAST channels; the rise of YouTube; and shifts within legacy media companies to reach streaming-centric consumers. ….

telcodad

Pay-TV Falls To 1987 Levels, But Wall Street Analyst Thinks It Could Be “Finding The Long-Imagined Bottom”
By Dade Hayes, Deadline - June 11, 2025
https://deadline.com/2025/06/pay-tv-falls-to-1987-levels-cable-mvpds-1236430611/

Cord-cutting is continuing to drive significant declines in pay-TV subscribers, but traditional pay-TV operators appear to be showing signs of being able to stop the bleeding. That’s one of the main takeaways in MoffettNathanson’s quarterly “Cord-Cutting Monitor” report, which the Wall Street research firm issued Tuesday.

“To state the obvious, a subscriber decline of nearly 12% per year can hardly be called ‘good,'” the firm’s Craig Moffett wrote. “But, for what it’s worth, we’ve now had three consecutive quarters of improvement in the decline rate of traditional pay-TV. That’s the first time we’ve been able to say that since the decline began” in the early 2010s. ….

telcodad

Broadcast TV viewership continues to fall:

Broadcast TV Viewership Hits Record-Low 18.5% As Streaming Grows Nielsen Reports
By Luke Bouma, Cord Cutters News - July 19, 2025
https://cordcuttersnews.com/broadcast-tv-viewership-hits-record-low-18-5-as-streaming-grows-nielsen-reports/

In a seismic shift for the television industry, streaming platforms captured 46% of total TV viewing in June, while broadcast TV plummeted to a historic low of 18.5%, according to Nielsen’s latest Gauge report: https://www.nielsen.com/data-center/the-gauge/

The decline marks the first time broadcast’s share has dipped below 20%, driven by the absence of major sports like football and the conclusion of prime-time series in May. Broadcast and cable combined fell from 44.2% in May to 41.9% in June, with broadcast dropping 5% month-over-month. Cable held relatively steady but still shed 0.7 share points due to a surge in overall TV usage, Nielsen noted.

Streaming, led by powerhouses Netflix and Peacock, saw a 5.4% increase in viewing compared to May. …
:
The surge in streaming was particularly pronounced among younger viewers. With school out, kids and teens aged 6 to 17 increased their TV usage by 27% compared to May, with streaming comprising two-thirds of their viewing time. The “other” category, encompassing video game consoles and set-top box usage on TVs, soared 41% in June, reflecting a shift in how younger audiences engage with screens. …..

timcuth

I’m more than 70, and we stream everything now, too. Our streaming service does offer local channels, so we still watch some broadcast stuff, but we do it via streaming.

lesmikesell

I ‘can’ watch OTA but currently have a YTTV subscription and use that instead. It is a little weird in that if you turn the TV off or use some other app, when you go back it picks up where you left off even several hours behind. Overnight seems to be long enough to stop it though.

Donut417

Not surprised by this. Streaming is more convenient then broadcast or cable TV. You can watch what you want when you want. The only downsides to streaming is when they loose rights when your in the middle of watching a show, and the fact the price keeps going up, at the same rate cable TV has been going up. But the plus sides to streaming is you can sub to what you want. The services are easy to sub to and easy to cancel. I find the shows on most streaming services are of a higher quality, though the season length of most shows are short.

urbanriot

timcuth I’m more than 70, and we stream everything now, too.

A lot of it depends on what you watch. I get all of my sports and news off antenna since I get practically every game on a local station.

We stream a lot too though but because there are so many products on so many platforms, I cycle through the streamers every few months or borrow a friends’ to see the shows I want to see. I’d say our household is probably 50% streaming, 50% antenna depending on the sports season.