NEW YORK—February TV viewing saw a record-setting Super Bowl Sunday on Feb. 11, which captured the largest Super Bowl audience in history, and further growth in streaming’s share of TV viewing, which climbed to a six month high. But those trends were not enough to overcome the typical seasonal downward trend in TV consumption, which saw overall viewing fall by 6.4% compared to January according to Nielsen’s The Gauge report for February 2024
While usage fell across each of the primary viewing categories in The Gauge, streaming exhibited minimal impact with a 1.9% decline that resulted in a 37.7% share of TV (+1.7 share pts.). Paramount+ saw the most monthly growth from a platform perspective (+24%, +0.2 share pt.) due in part to carrying a livestream of CBS' Super Bowl broadcast, as well as from the 1.2 billion viewing minutes captured by “Halo.”
YouTube achieved a platform-best 9.3% share of TV usage (+0.7 share pt.), and FAST services exhibited exceptional strength with PlutoTV up 10%, Tubi up 8.3% and the Roku Channel up 8.1%, the report said.
From a streaming content perspective, acquired titles attracted the most viewership in February, with “Young Sheldon” (Netflix, Max) topping the rankings with 4.6 billion viewing minutes, followed by “Bluey” (Disney+) with 4.5 billion and “Grey's Anatomy” (Netflix) with 3.5 billion. Netflix's “Griselda” represented the top streaming original title with 3.2 billion minutes, ranking fourth overall this month.
Broadcast viewing in February fell 10% vs. January and the category lost 0.9 share points to account for 23.3% of TV. On Super Bowl Sunday, however, the broadcast category made up over 43% of total TV usage, led by Super Bowl LVIII on CBS which generated nearly 30 billion viewing minutes alone. In addition to drawing over 17 million viewers for the Grammys, CBS also attracted solid audiences for new scripted programming including Tracker, NCIS, FBI and the final season of Young Sheldon.
TV viewing on Super Bowl Sunday was also the highest of any day since Nielsen launched the Gauge in May of 2021.
Cable fell to record lows, exhibiting its smallest share of TV viewing to date with 27.6% of overall TV usage. Cable news viewing increased 7% as audiences tuned in to election year coverage, while sports viewing was down by about one-third. However, the sports genre still delivered the top programs for cable, with the 2024 NBA All-Star Game on TNT, TBS and TruTV taking the top slot, followed by NBA All-Star Saturday Night on TNT and TruTV.
Linear (live TV) streaming via MVPD and vMVPD apps represented 6.2% of total television usage in February. Linear streaming is included in the appropriate broadcast or cable category, and is not included in the streaming category.
