Cable and broadcast bounce back a bit in TV platform rankings in August 2023 – The Hollywood Reporter
After TV usage fell below half in July, cable and broadcast networks exceeded that threshold again in August. Streaming, meanwhile, suffered its first (albeit slight) dip in five months.
Linear TV networks fell to 49.6 percent of viewers in July, the first time since Nielsen began publishing its monthly Gauge reports on TV usage that the two fell below 50 percent. Cable and broadcast each saw a slight uptick in August, with cable accounting for 30.2 percent of TV usage in the United States (up from 29.6 percent the previous month), while broadcast networks rose from 20 percent in July to 20.4 percent in August increased.
Nielsen cited unscripted franchises like NBC’s America’s Got Talent and CBS’ Big Brother, along with the NFL preseason, as a driver of the recovery for broadcast networks. Sports and news consumption led to the rise in cable television.
Among all individual platforms, streaming still had the largest share of TV viewing time (38.3 percent), but that was down from July (38.7 percent). The decline was largely due to a large cohort of streaming-first viewers – children and teens – returning to school in August. According to Nielsen, the decline in streaming viewership among people ages 2 to 17 accounted for 80 percent of the overall decline, mirroring a similar increase at the end of the previous school year in June. (The remaining 11.1 percent came from other TV usage, including gaming and physical media playback.)
Despite the monthly decline, the longer trend still shows significant growth in streaming: A year ago, streaming platforms accounted for 31.3 percent of TV usage, while broadcast and cable combined accounted for 56.6 percent.
YouTube (9.1 percent of all TV usage) and Netflix (8.2 percent) remained the two leading individual streaming services. Peacock saw the biggest growth of any streamer, rising 8.3 percent last month. Thanks to its sports offering and the streaming premiere of The Super Mario Bros. movie. However, this didn’t translate into a huge increase in share of total TV usage, as the NBCUniversal-owned platform rose a tenth of a point to 1.2 percent.
Nielsen’s gauge rankings for August 2023 are listed below.
Platforms
Streaming: 38.3 percent of TV usage
Cable: 30.2 percent
Broadcast: 20.4 percent
Other: 11.1 percent
Streaming services
YouTube: 9.1 percent
Netflix: 8.2 percent
Hulu: 3.6 percent
Prime Video: 3.4 percent
Disney+: 2 percent
Tubi: 1.3 percent
Maximum: 1.3 percent
Peacock: 1.2 percent
Roku Channel: 1.1 percent
Paramount+: 1.1 percent
Pluto TV: 0.9 percent
All others: 5.2 percent
