Cable, Streaming Usage Rose in December, Nielsen Reports

'Young Sheldon' stars Iain Armitage as young Sheldon Cooper of 'The Big Bang Theory.'.

Television usage increased 1.7% in December to its highest levels since January 2023, but the biggest jump came from video-game consoles, with streaming, broadcast and cable all losing share, Nielsen said.

December 31 was the second-biggest day for TV viewing in 2023, behind only Super Bowl Sunday on February 12.

Broadcast viewing fell 4.3% — the first drop since July — and its share of TV usage dropped to 23.5% from 24.9% in November. Sports represented 28.5% of broadcast viewing.

Compared to a year ago, broadcast usage was down 5.9%.

Cable usage was up 1.3% but cable’s share of viewing dipped to 28.2% from 28.3% in November. Feature fils was the top cable genre with a 21.4% share. Sports viewing grew 8.4% with ESPN’s December 30 Detroit Lions-Dallas Cowboys game drawing 11 million viewers. 

Cable viewing was down 9.7% from a year ago in December.

Streaming was up 1.2% but its share of TV usage declined to 35.9% from 36.1% a year ago. Viewing by people age 18 to 24 was up 2.7%.

Time spent watching YouTube on TV was down 3.4%, while Netflix (up 6%) and Tubi (up 6.6%) showed gains.

(Image credit: Nielsen)

The top streaming titles were Young Sheldon (on several streaming services) and Leave The World Behind on Netflix.

YouTube remained the top streamer on TV with an 8.5% share of viewing, down from 9% last month.

Nielsen’s “other” category, including video gaming, gained in share to 12,5% from 10.7%.

Netflix share rose to 7.7% from 7.4%, Amazon Prime Video had a 3.3% share, down from 3.4%; Hulu had a 2.6% of TV usage, down from 2.7%; Disney Plus’ share was 1.9%, unchanged; Tubi had 1.4%, unchanged; Peacock garnered 1.3%, the same as in November; Max held steady with a 1.2%; Paramount Plus had 0.9%, unchanged and Pluto TV dropped to 0.7% from 0.8%.

Linear (live TV) streaming via MVPD (multichannel video programming distributors) and vMVPD (virtual multichannel video programming distributors) apps represented 6% of total television usage in December. Linear streaming is included in the appropriate broadcast or cable category, and is not included in the streaming category.