Streaming Dethrones TV Giants: Netflix, YouTube Lead The Takeover

Streaming viewership for movies, shows, and sports hit a major milestone in May, surpassing the combined audience of broadcast and cable TV for the first time—a shift that underscores the medium's growing dominance.

What Happened: Consumers are likely not surprised to hear that streaming is the most popular monthly viewing option for content, as the sector has taken viewers away from traditional broadcast television and cable television.

However, it may be surprising to hear that streaming's 44.8% market share in May beat the combined total of broadcast and cable television, which had a 44.2% market share, according to Nielsen data.

The remaining 10.9% was listed as miscellaneous categories.

This marked the first time streaming has passed the other two mediums combined, according to a Variety report.

Gauge, Nielsen's monthly TV consumption report, has tracked streaming data since May 2021. Since then, streaming usage has increased 71%. Comparatively, broadcast viewership is down 21%, and cable television viewership is down 39%.

Among the winners in streaming’s growth is YouTube, the video platform owned by Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL. In May, YouTube made up 12.5% of Nielsen’s viewership, the highest monthly total for a streamer over the four years of tracking.

YouTube viewership is up 120% over the four years and the platform is regularly the monthly streaming leader.

The other streaming leader mentioned in the monthly report was Netflix Inc. NFLX. According to the report, Netflix viewership has increased 27% between May 2021 and now. Netflix has been the leading SVOD over the past four years.

The biggest streaming program in May was Netflix's "You," with the final season released on April 23. Over four billion minutes of multiple seasons of "You" were watched during the month.

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Why It's Important: Streaming continues to grow significantly and take over viewership from cable and broadcast television.

Nielsen's report emphasizes that streaming passed the other two entities combined for the first time in May when football and other key sports were not on.

Live sports, particularly NCAA Football and NFL, remain keys for broadcast and cable television during the fall and winter months and keys to grabbing strong viewership and lucrative advertising dollars.

Netflix and other streamers have shown interest in landing more live sports and are taking more market share away during the football months.

On Christmas Day 2024, Netflix streamed two NFL games and posted the biggest streaming day in history.

With streaming platforms securing more sports rights in addition to original series and movies, May may mark just the beginning of streaming surpassing the combined viewership of broadcast and cable TV.

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Image created using artificial intelligence via Midjourney.