THE STREAMING MARKET CONTINUES TO GROW AS TRADITIONAL OUTLETS MAKE THE TRANSITION

Nielsen’s new monthly total TV and streaming snapshot shows that streaming usage across all television homes has climbed to 26% of all time spent on TV. Streaming and broadcast now account for half of the television time, with usage split evenly between the two channels. “The past year has categorically shifted the television viewing landscape. Even as people begin to dive back into their pre-pandemic activities, based on the changes many made to enable streaming coupled with the variety of newly introduced services, we expect people to keep sampling and exploring their options,” says Brian Fuhrer, SVP, Product Strategy at Nielsen.

Based on its May findings for cable networks and TV, consumers spend 64% of their time in the living room screentime watching. Streaming, in total, racked up just 26% with YouTube and Netflix making up 6 percent each, followed by Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Disney Plus with 3, 2, and 1 percent, respectively. But again, this is only measuring TV screen usage — not what’s happening on a laptop, desktop, phone, or tablet screens — and even these metrics are difficult to put into perspective.

The industry is expected to further evolved as a result of abundant launches, potential consumer adoption of additional streaming services and the value of the transition for content creators and advertisers. “Maybe just as importantly, as production ramps back up, new content will enter the space, driving additional traction,” Fuhrer said.

The Gauge, used to collect related data, is a monthly interval showing the Total Usage of Television (TUT) for Broadcast, Streaming, Cable, and Other with a Streaming channel drill down. The device is attached directly to the televisions of the roughly 14,000 homes from which The Gauge currently gathers data. All other TV includes: The primary components of this are AOT (ALL Other Tuning), VOD, Streaming through a cable set-top box, Gaming, and other device (DVD Playback) use.

Other streaming is any high bandwidth video streaming to the television not listed. "The Gauge pulls back the curtain on just how much today’s major streaming platforms are being used. It’s an important step forward in the journey towards true cross-platform measurement, an undertaking that Nielsen will be uniquely equipped to handle with Nielsen ONE," the research company said, in a note.