The Roku Channel surpassed a 1% share of total TV viewing in May — 1.1% to be precise — earning it a spot on Nielsen’s monthly report card.
Nielsen said that in May, viewing was down 4.4% from April, but that streaming viewing was up 2.5%. Streaming gained share, rising to 36.4% from 34% in April.
Netflix and Amazon Prime Video each rose in May. Some of Netflix’s 9.2% increase came from a technical change at Nielsen, but Netflix also had the top three streaming titles this month in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, A Man Called Otto and The Mother.
Prime Video benefited from the strength of its original series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Citadel, Nielsen said.
The Roku Channel became the third free ad-supported streaming service to top a 1% share. Paramount’s Pluto TV and Fox’s Tubi had done it previously. The three services accounted for about 3.3% of all viewing, Nielsen said.
YouTube was the top streaming service with a 8.5% share of TV viewing in May, up from 8.1% in April. YouTube was followed by Netflix at 7.9%, up from 6.9%; Hulu at 3.7%, up from 3.3%; Amazon Prime at 3.1%, up from 2.8%, Disney Plus flat at 1.8%;Tubi at 1.3%; HBO Max unchanged at 1.2%; Peacock at 1.1%, unchanged; The Roku Channel at 1.1% and Pluto TV at 0.9%, up from 0.8%
Broadcast and cable lost viewing and share.
Broadcast viewing was down 5.5% as sports viewing declined 25%.Cable was down 5.4% despite a 12% increase in sports viewership.
On a year-over-year basis, broadcast viewing was down 5.6% and cable viewing was down 13.7%.
Viewing via MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor) and vMVPD (virtual multichannel video programming distributor) streaming apps represented 5.5% of total television use in May, including 1.3% attributed to YouTube TV, and 0.4% to Hulu Live.
Compared with May 2022, overall streaming consumption has increased by more than 30%, and streaming’s share of TV has risen 8.2 share points.
Nielsen explained the “technical” change it implemented this month. Previously, set-top box streaming appeared in the “other” category. Now, content streamed via a cable set-top box that is identified as a “streaming original” is credited to the appropriate streaming service, and by extension, the overall streaming category (deducted from “other”). Though it will vary based on various factors, impact data from prior intervals indicates an approximate 1.5% share impact on total streaming.
