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Streaming consumption continues to grow for the third consecutive month, but it did not come at the expense of broadcast or cable viewing, as these two segments saw month-to-month increases for the month of April.
According to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge, streaming grew by +0.5% from March to 44.3% of TV usage in April. Streaming’s growth did not come at the expense of the linear channels (broadcast and cable), but it seemed to have eaten its way into the Other category, as it was the only TV viewing segment to record month-to-month declines, down by -0.6% from March to stand at 10.3% in April.
Sports once again came to the rescue of the broadcast viewing segment. CBS Sports’ showing of the Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship game, which had 18.3 million total viewers, and The Masters golf tournament finale, which had 13 million total viewers, saw the linear segment achieve a 0.3% gain from the previous month to stand at 20.8% in April.
Meanwhile, cable achieved increased viewership of 24.5% of total TV watch-time in April courtesy of sports and news. This was a 0.5% increase from the previous month, with gains coming from ESPN’s coverage of the NFL Draft on April 24, which averaged 6.4 million total viewers, making it the most-watched cable telecast in April. The NBA playoffs brought on significant viewership with ESPN and TNT hosting five games apiece and averaging 3.1 and 2.8 million total viewers, respectively. Lastly, Fox News’ The Five continued its dominance, having nine of the top ten telecasts.
When combined, the linear segment of broadcast and cable (45.3%) had a better showing than streaming (44.3%). The gap between linear and streaming saw some distance as there was a +0.8% separation for the month of April, which was better than the previous month, which was at +0.7%.
Multiplatform and multichannel distribution strategies are responsible for the impressive performance of the streaming and linear segments, according to Nielsen. ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, which airs first-run episodes on ABC and exclusively on Hulu and reairs on Netflix and Hulu, had 3.9 billion viewing minutes, making it the most-streamed title of the month.
YouTube remained the dominant player in the streaming category, with 12.4% of all viewing. It improved by +0.4% from its March performance (12%).
Netflix followed next with 7.5% of all total streaming consumption in April (down -0.4% from March). After Netflix, the other streaming services were Disney+ with 5% and Prime Video with 3.5%. Both were flat month over month.
Paramount+ followed with 2.4% (up +.01), next is Roku Channel also with 2.4% (up +0.1%), and then Tubi with 2.0% (up +0.1%). Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming service of Max and Discovery+ remained ahead of Peacock, staying put with 1.5%. NBCUniversal’s streaming service also remained flat with 1.4%, while the other streaming category saw consumption increase by +0.1% to end up at 6.2%.
See the media distribution ranking below:
