Though the summer months normally see a winding down of TV viewing, streaming obtained yet another record high of 33.7% of total TV time – says Nielsen’s June 2022 The Gauge report.
This marks streaming’s largest reported share since Nielsen began releasing The Gauge in May 2021.
The streaming category’s gain boosted total June TV viewing by 1.9%. From the streaming services displayed in the rankings, Netflix holds the largest audience share of 7.7%, up from 6.8% in May. “Stranger Things” viewers likely contributed to that percentage, as the fourth season recently amassed 1.15 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days.
YouTube – including YouTube TV – had the second highest amount of streaming view shares at 6.9%. Netflix and YouTube have seen gains in connected TV viewership. A recent analysis from LightShed pointed out Netflix and YouTube captured the largest shares of CTV viewing time as of March 2022.
And Netflix’s streaming views remain solid, despite reporting 970,000 net subscriber losses in the second quarter. That number was actually lower than what the streamer anticipated last quarter – a loss of around 2 million subs.
Disney+ meanwhile increased its view share to 2% from 1.7% in May, though its subsidiary Hulu slightly dropped from 3.4% to 3.3%. Interestingly, Hulu’s most recent subscriber numbers slightly outpace those of Disney+’s, according to a Wall Street Journal report from this week.
HBO Max maintained the 1% share it first reached in April, while Prime Video’s share saw a slight boost from 2.6% and 2.9%. HBO Max may once again have a home on Prime Video Channels, with reports indicating the two companies may have another distribution agreement in the works.
As for broadcast and cable, both categories saw declines in TV viewership for June. Broadcast’s viewing share dropped by 2.1%, whereas cable’s share fell from 36.5% to 35.1%.
Live sports events played a role in both linear categories. NHL and NBA finals in June drove a 43.8% spike in broadcast views for sports. Cable, which saw an uptick of sports views in May from NBA playoffs, saw that number drop 42.1% after those games concluded.
Even though sports still maintain a presence on linear TV, that may not be the case in the long run as more programming moves to streaming. A recent MoffettNathanson report highlighted the linear video industry collectively lost about 2.1 million subscribers in Q1 2022.
The Gauge further noted drama viewing for broadcast fell 31%, due to the end of the traditional TV season. Cable also saw a 15.8% increase in feature film viewing from May – making up 13.7% of total cable viewing minutes.