According to Nielsen, the biggest gain in television usage in December was via video game consoles, with streaming, broadcast, and cable all losing share. Television consumption had grown 1.7% to its highest levels since January 2023.
Only Super Bowl Sunday on February 12 was the largest day for TV watching in 2023, with December 31 coming in second.
For the first time since July, broadcast viewership decreased by 4.3%, and its percentage of TV consumption decreased from 24.9% in November to 23.5%. Of the broadcast viewing, 28.5% was devoted to sports.
The amount of broadcast usage was 5.9% less than a year ago.
Although cable usage increased by 1.3%, its percentage of viewing fell to 28.2% from 28.3% in November. At 21.4%, feature films ranked as the most popular genre on cable. With 11 million viewers for ESPN’s Detroit Lions vs. Dallas Cowboys game on December 30, sports viewing increased by 8.4%.
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In December of last year, there was a 9.7% decrease in cable viewing.
While streaming increased by 1.2%, its percentage of TV usage fell to 35.9% from 36.1% in the previous year. 18 to 24 year olds’ viewing increased by 2.7%.
TV time spent on YouTube decreased by 3.4%, but usage of Tubi (up 6.6%), Netflix (up 6%), and other services increased.
Young Sheldon (available on several streaming platforms) and Netflix’s Leave the World Behind were the most popular streaming titles.
Despite a decrease in viewing share from 9% to 8.5% this month, YouTube continued to be the most popular TV streamer.
Video games are included in Nielsen’s “other” category, which saw a share increase to 12.5% from 10.7%.
Netflix’s share increased from 7.4% to 7.7%, while Amazon Prime Video’s share decreased from 3.4% to 2.6%, Hulu’s share decreased from 2.7% to 2.6%, Disney Plus’s share remained unchanged at 1.9%, Tubi’s share remained at 1.4%, Peacock’s share remained at 1.3%, Max remained at 1.2%, and Pluto TV fell from 0.8% to 0.7%.
Six percent of all television viewing in December came from linear (live TV) streaming through MVPD (multichannel video programming distributors) and vMVPD (virtual multichannel video programming distributors) apps. Not included in the streaming category, linear streaming falls under the proper broadcast or cable category.
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