More Americans streamed TV content in July than got it via cable, the first month this has ever happened, according to new data from Nielsen.
“Streaming represented a record 34.8% share of total television consumption, while cable and broadcast came in at 34.4% and 21.6%, respectively,” Nielsen noted in an investor-relations release.
Year over year, streaming’s share of views has increased by 22.6%; cable has dropped by 9.8% and broadcast by 8.9% in the same timeframe, according to the investor relations report.
The milestone for streaming comes on the heels of “four consecutive months of hitting new viewership highs,” in March-June 2022, according to a separate Nielsen press release.
Netflix led the pack among streaming platforms with 8% of TV consumption, buoyed by a new season of “Stranger Things.” Next came YouTube and YouTube TV at 7.3%, Hulu at 3.6%, Amazon Prime Video at 3%, Disney+ at 1.8% and HBO Max at 1%.
Cable and broadcast, on the other hand, suffered from the loss of sports viewers.
The end of the basketball and hockey playoffs in June, the lack of an Olympics compared to last year, and the delay of the World Cup until November to beat the Qatari heat all contributed.
As such, there has been a 34% year-over-year drop for cable and a 43% year-over-year decline for broadcast television.
Americans are streaming even more now than they did during the pandemic lockdown in April 2020.
“Audiences watched an average of 190.9 billion minutes of streamed content per week – easily surpassing the 169.9 billion minutes that audiences watched during the pandemic lockdown period back in April 2020. Excluding the week of Dec. 27, 2021, the five weeks of July 2022 represent the highest-volume streaming weeks on record,” the Nielsen press release noted.
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