With the number of subscription video services now exceeding the number of people in the US, it’s no surprise that May 2021 data from Nielsen shows that TV households were spending more time streaming than they were watching broadcast TV.
The data shows that streaming accounted for 26% of the time spent daily with TV during the month of May, edging past broadcast TV, which accounted for 25% of the total time spent per day. However, both were well below the 39% share of total time households spent watching cable TV.
Streaming services Netflix and YouTube accounted for the largest share of time spent streaming, with 6% of overall TV time each, followed by Hulu (3% share of overall TV time), Prime Video (2%) and Disney+ (1%).
This data from Nielsen is the first from its recently released “The Gauge” which measures total TV usage. Prior to this, Nielsen’s data on steaming was limited. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, weekly program rankings only features Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Disney+ and only include viewing on TV sets and viewers in the US.
