Total TV viewing falls but streaming rebounds in May 2023
After showing an unexpected fall of 2.1% in viewing time during April 2023, streaming has seen a pick up May with audiences drawing on a growing range of services to end with a 36.4% share of all TV viewing says the latest Nielsen’s Gauge research.
The research firm attributed some of the increases in its May 2023 study to a change in study methodology change that credits the viewing of streaming originals via cable set-top boxes to the streaming category in order to more fully capture streaming usage. Approximately half of the 2.5% increase in monthly usage reflected this viewing behaviour. In addition, the May 2023 study also saw the Roku Channel become the latest service to obtain stand-alone coverage, capturing 1.1% of total TV usage in May.
Despite the streaming gains, however, total TV usage fell 4.4% from April. The drop was said to be driven by reduced broadcast and cable viewing, which posted drops of 5.5% and 5.4%, respectively. The declines caused broadcast and cable to each decline by 0.3 share points.
On a year-on-year basis, broadcast viewing was down 5.6% and cable viewing was down 13.7%.A 25% drop in sports viewing was largely responsible for the declines on broadcast, but viewership of the Kentucky Derby outpaced NCIS, Young Sheldon, Blue Bloods, Ghosts and FBI. Cable ended its gains seen during the previous two months, but the extensive coverage of the NBA Finals on ESPN and TNT hooped a 12% increase in sports viewership, and accounted for the top four cable programmes in May. News viewing fell more than 11% from April.
In streaming, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video posted usage gains of 9.2% and 5.1%, respectively. Roughly half of the Netflix increase was driven by the methodology change, coupled with the fact that the platform had the top three streaming titles in May. Namely: Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (5.4 billion viewing minutes), A Man Called Otto (3.1 billion) and The Mother (3.0 billion). Capturing 3.1% of TV, Amazon Prime Video benefitted from the strength of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Citadel, which combined for 2.7 billion minutes. And for the fourth straight month, YouTube maintained its stance as the top platform, gaining 0.4 share points to account for 8.5% of TV.
Nielsen said the rise of Roku highlighted the increasing footprint of free ad-supported television (FAST) services. Combined, the three FAST products in the survey – Pluto TV, Tubi TV, Roku Channel – were each comparable in usage to Peacock and HBO Max. And in aggregate, they account for more viewership than Amazon Prime Video.
