YouTube surpassed the Walt Disney Company as the biggest television media brand in the United States for the first time since Nielsen began collecting data on the trend, the analytics company reported this week.
According to Nielsen, YouTube accounted for more than 10 percent of all time spent on TV in July. The Walt Disney Company’s broadcast, cable and streaming platforms — which have typically dominated Nielsen’s media distribution list — came in second place at just under 10 percent, while NBC Universal clocked in at 9.5 percent.
It was the first time a pure-play streaming media platform was at the top of the list since Nielsen began offering the report in May.
The report, called the Media Distribution Gauge, breaks down media consumption by brand, and includes broadcast and cable networks, streaming video platforms and other places where video content is offered to consumers.
YouTube operates two platforms called YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, both of which are integrated into and complementary to its eponymous free, ad-supported media platform.
Disney, on the other hand, has a more-diversified portfolio of TV products, including the broadcast network ABC, cable channels Disney, Freeform, FX and ESPN, and direct-to-consumer streaming services Disney Plus, ESPN Plus and Hulu.
Nielsen says seasonality played a big role in which companies came out on top in July. Younger viewers, who are more attune to content on YouTube, are usually off from school in the summer months and thus have more time to stream content. Nielsen said YouTube’s climb was “driven largely by school-aged viewers” between the ages of two and 17, who “accounted for nearly 30 percent of YouTube’s viewership this month.”
Overall TV viewing was also impacted by the start of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, Nielsen said, which helped lift NBC Universal to third place in its report for July. NBC Universal holds the domestic English-language and Spanish-language TV rights to the Olympic Games through 2032; in addition to all events being available on Peacock, NBC made hundreds of hours of content available through its flagship broadcast network and on cable channels USA Network, E!, CNBC and Golf Channel.
Overall, the increase in TV time was also attributed to higher interest in political news, with events like the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and the withdrawal of incumbent President Joe Biden from the race for the White House driving viewership to cable news channels and streaming-only news platforms (many of which — including Scripps News, ABC News Live and NBC News Now — distribute live feeds on YouTube).
