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For the first time in the past four months, streaming platforms did not increase their share of TV viewers’ time. Broadcast and cable networks also held steady, according to Nielsen.
Streaming accounted for 28 percent of viewers’ time in August, according to Nielsen’s latest edition of The Gauge, which measures total TV use across platforms. That was even with July’s figure and the first time streaming has not increased its share since the first Gauge release in May. Nielsen notes that total streaming minutes were down slightly, driven in part by a 7.5 percent drop in usage among people ages 6-17 as the school year began in many parts of the country.
Total TV usage rose by 0.5 percent month to month, driven mostly by a small bump in time spent with broadcast TV. Thanks largely to NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympics, broadcast networks had about a 3 percent bump in consumption — albeit not enough to move their overall share of TV usage, which remained at 24 percent.
Cable retained the largest share of TV usage at 38 percent. In addition to the Olympics on NBCUniversal’s cable channels, ESPN got strong ratings from its “Field of Dreams” baseball game, and the start of the NFL preseason boosted sports channels. Other TV usage, including unmeasured video on demand, gaming and physical media playback, made up the remaining 10 percent.
Nielsen’s Gauge rankings for August are below.
Platforms
Cable: 38 percent
Streaming: 28 percent
Broadcast: 24 percent
Other: 10 percent
Streaming Services
Netflix: 7 percent
YouTube: 6 percent
Hulu: 3 percent
Amazon Prime Video: 2 percent
Disney+: 2 percent
All other streamers: 9 percent
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