Americans spent a considerable amount of time with their television sets and similar screens in the month of November, with interest fueled by the U.S. presidential election and the bicoastal World Series event, according to the latest “The Gauge” report from Nielsen.
The report, which dropped a bit earlier than expected, showed streaming services cut into broadcast and cable TV’s lead from October, with traditional linear television accounting for just 48.7 percent of all time spent with TV, according to Nielsen. By comparison, broadcast and cable TV held a 50.3 percent share of time spent with TV in October.
The November report covers the period between October 28 and November 24, and didn’t include viewership figures for Thanksgiving, which will be disclosed next month.
Coverage of the presidential election helped drive interest to cable networks, which saw a 32 percent lift between the last week of October and the first week of November. Once the election was over, people wanted a break from the news, with Nielsen saying streaming platforms benefitted from viewers “seeking solace from the atypical, election-fueled news cycle covered by many traditional TV networks.”
In the second week of November, streaming platforms captured 42.6 percent of all time spent with TV, helping to drive its overall share to 41.6 percent during November, a record for that sector.
YouTube continued to be the dominant platform that people turned to for streaming entertainment, capturing 10.8 percent of all time spent with TV. Excluding YouTube, Netflix was the dominant streaming service at 7.7 percent, followed by Amazon’s Prime Video with 3.7 percent.
Among free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) platforms, The Roku Channel maintained its top position with 1.9 percent share, a slight bump from October. Fox’s Tubi stayed in second place with 1.8 percent share, while Paramount’s Pluto TV improved its position to 0.9 percent share, up by a fraction on a month-over basis.
On TV, the World Series helped drive interest to broadcast TV, with the last week of October being the most-dominant for the sector. The final three World Series games totaled 10 billion viewing minutes combined, and the Game 5 competition between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees averaged 18.2 million viewers, Nielsen said.
