Americans continued to tune out of traditional forms of television in favor of streaming apps and services in June, according to the latest monthly “The Gauge” report from Nielsen.
The report shows traditional platforms accounted for nearly 42 percent of all time spent with TV in American households last month, down from the 44.2 percent share that broadcast and cable TV accounted for as a collective whole in May.
Last month’s report marked one of the rare times that Nielsen counted broadcast and cable TV together in its written synopsis of The Gauge, and the measurement company used the opportunity to point out that traditional TV’s share had fallen below the collective effort of streaming platforms for the first time since the company began releasing its reports a few years ago.
In June, traditional TV platforms were weighed by lower interest in broadcast TV channels and networks, largely as a result of less premium sports programming. Broadcast TV accounted for 18.5 percent of all time spent with TV, down from 20.1 percent logged in May. It was the first time the broadcast category fell below 20 percent, Nielsen noted.
Cable TV saw its share dip to 23.4 percent, down from 24.1 percent reported a month ago. While cable entertainment networks lagged behind streaming apps, Nielsen noted that May was a good month for cable news channels, with Fox News and CNN pulling seeing strong interest with political and special interest programming.
Across streaming apps, YouTube remained king, growing its share by 0.3 percent to end June with 12.8 percent of all time spent with television, Nielsen said.
Netflix had the biggest growth of the period, ending June with 8.3 percent of time spent with TV, up from 7.5 percent one month ago and accounting for a boost in overall TV viewing time in June.
Comcast’s streaming service Peacock ranked toward the bottom of the list, accounting for 1.5 percent of time spent with TV, but Nielsen said the streamer saw one of its best months in terms of overall usage, notching a 15.4 percent increase in total use time driven primarily by the reality series “Love Island USA.”
Among free streaming services, The Roku Channel continued to top the list with a 2.5 percent share of time spent with TV, though Nielsen didn’t say if streamers were flocking to Roku’s on-demand content or the hundreds of free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels available within the app. Its position was unchanged from May.
Fox-owned Tubi also saw its position unchanged on a sequential basis, ending June with 2.2 percent of time spent with TV. In the past, Fox executives have said most viewing on Tubi involves the platform’s on-demand content.
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