Viewing to streaming services surpassed that of cable in the United States for the first time in July, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge.
The monthly snapshot of TV a streaming found streaming took a record 34.8% share of total television consumption, while cable and broadcast came in at 34.4% and 21.6%, respectively. While streaming has previously overtaken broadcast viewing, this is the first time it has also exceeded cable viewing.
Nielsen notes that while the total time spent watch TV in July “closely resembled” both June 2022 and July 2021, the distribution of viewing formats from year to year demonstrates how viewing behaviours are continuing to shift.
Among streaming platforms, Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu and YouTube each captured record-high shares again in July after previously doing so in June. Netflix represented the largest share of overall TV viewing for a streaming platform with 8%, boosted by the nearly 18 billion viewing minutes of Stranger Things alone.
Cable viewing in July dropped -2% and -0.7 share points compared to June, and year-over-year, cable usage was down -8.9% and -3.3 share points. Sports viewing posted the biggest decline for the category, dropping -15.4% from June and -34% from a year ago when the 2020 Summer Olympics began.
