Just four years ago, ratings service Nielsen launched its monthly The Gauge reports tracking TV viewership between broadcast television, cable, and streaming. In that time, streaming viewership has gotten perhaps even bigger than you realize. And for its May 2025 report, it hit a new milestone.
Nielsen says that for the first time since it has been tracking via The Gauge, the amount of time people spend watching TV via streaming services has surpassed the amount they watch traditional broadcast television and cable TV — combined.
Streaming accounted for 44.8 percent of all TV viewership in the U.S., while cable was just 24.1 percent and broadcast was 20.1 percent. Compare that to May 2021, when streaming was just 26 percent of all TV viewing, and cable was up at 39 percent. Nielsen says it’s a 71 percent increase in overall TV usage for streaming. And if you can believe it, only half of that is from your kid watching “Bluey” episodes on repeat.
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Less than a year ago, we wrote that streaming broke another record and for the first time was bigger than cable ever was (or at least since 2021), but now it’s clawing away at both broadcast and cable. It should be a surprise to no one that viewership for broadcast and cable is dwindling, but Nielsen says the two legacy forms of media show “surprising resilience.”
Back in 2021, just five streaming services had more than 1 percent of all eyeballs watching TV: Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Prime Video, and Disney+. Now that list has grown to 11 platforms that have a consistent share of viewing, including 5.7 percent of all viewing coming from FAST channel platforms Pluto, Tubi, and Roku Channel. Paramount+ and Peacock have also secured solid market shares, as has the combined viewing of HBO Max and Discovery+ (though Apple TV+ is still absent from crossing Nielsen’s 1 percent threshold).
YouTube is still king, but Netflix’s viewing share has gone up 27 percent since May 2021 and this year had 7.5 percent of all TV viewing. Some of Netflix’s boost came from its two Christmas Day NFL games last year, which was the biggest streaming day in history, according to Nielsen. The influx of sports to places like Peacock and Prime Video will only widen the gap. However, Nielsen says that when football and some hit fall shows come back later in the year, it’s likely broadcast may temporarily win back a higher share.
So what do all these numbers mean for creators? It means the shift away from broadcast and cable is happening faster than even people thought, and that’s going to impact the consolidation of companies that are right now separating their cable channels from their studio and streaming businesses. It also suggests creators should be paying more attention to FAST, as there are a lot of eyeballs there for your work.
Take a look at the full report here.
