Streaming Accounts for Nearly 40% of U.S. TV Consumption

Beginning with the success of Netflix‘s all-you-can stream model, there has been a dramatic shift in TV consumption over the past decade. Consumers quickly came to appreciate the flexibility, ease-of-use and affordability of Netflix and other streaming services that inevitably followed, making life increasingly hard for broadcast TV networks, cable TV providers and traditional pay-TV channels such as HBO.

As more and more media companies jumped on the streaming bandwagon, consumers now have a plethora of choices, no matter if they prefer movies and series (Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, etc.), documentaries (Discovery+ and others) or sports (ESPN+, DAZN). With the exception of live sports, which is one of the last strongholds of linear TV, streaming services have taken over a large chunk of TV consumption in the U.S. and around the world.

According to Nielsen’s The Gauge, a monthly report on TV viewing behavior in the United States, streaming services surpassed cable TV for the first time in July 2022, when it accounted for 34.8 percent of daily TV consumption, versus 34.4 percent for cable and 21.6 percent for broadcast. Since then, streaming’s share of TV viewing increased further, peaking at 38.7 percent in July 2023 before declining slightly to 37.5 percent in September. The decline wasn’t caused by streaming’s weakness, whoever, but by the start of the college football and NFL season, which provided a big boost to broadcast viewing, which increased its share from 20 percent in July to 23 percent in September.