The Gauge, Nielsen's Total TV and Streaming Snapshot, Reveals Streaming Has its Largest Share Yet in March

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Apr 21, 2022, 08:00 ET

Streaming accounted for nearly 30% of overall usage; total viewing dropped 4.2% from February

NEW YORK, April 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Gauge, the monthly total TV and streaming snapshot from Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN), showed that streaming captured its largest share of total television usage ever in March, making up nearly 30% of overall viewing time. Despite a 0.7% decrease in time spent streaming from February, viewing share across all streaming platforms was either flat or gained slightly in March. Most notably, the "Other Streaming" subset, which includes any high-bandwidth video streaming on TV that is not individually broken out, increased its share by 0.3% as more streaming platforms continue to gain traction.

As a whole, total television usage was down in March, decreasing by 4.2% versus February. Cable stood out as the only viewing category to see an increase in both share and volume, jumping 1.6 share points from last month. Cable news viewing was up 14% from February and accounted for 21% of the cable share, driven by continuing news coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Broadcast viewing was down 1.1 share points from February, impacted by a 53% decrease in sports viewing, as it was a challenge to replace the amount of viewership from the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl. Drama programming stood out as the genre of choice for many broadcast consumers in March, increasing viewership by 17% from February and accounting for one-third of broadcast's share. While broadcast news consumption remained relatively flat at 14% of broadcast viewing, the volume of broadcast news programming dropped 6% versus the prior month.

Measuring and monitoring consumers' streaming behavior in a comparable way against linear TV usage is a critical source of information for the industry as content creators, media companies, streaming platforms, advertisers, industry groups, talent agencies and the talent themselves all seek clarity around the various video content that consumers engage with.

About The Gauge
The Gauge is underpinned by Nielsen's TV ratings service and Streaming Platform Ratings. The latter provides clients with audience measurement data that details the amount of time consumers spend streaming and on which platforms. This broad look at platform usage provides complimentary insights to Nielsen Streaming Content Ratings, which details viewing to subscription-based video on demand (SVOD) content at the title, program and episode level. By showcasing both the micro and macro-level data sets, the industry has a full picture of how this media is being consumed, as well as when and by whom.

Nielsen's approach to audience measurement, which leverages a geographically representative panel of real people and big data, is built for the future of media consumption. With The Gauge, the future of TV consumption is visible in a single view. The latest edition of The Gauge is always available at www.nielsen.com/thegauge.

About Nielsen
Nielsen shapes the world's media and content as a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics. Through our understanding of people and their behaviors across all channels and platforms, we empower our clients with independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and engage with their audiences—now and into the future. An S&P 500 company, Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) operates around the world in more than 55 countries. Learn more at www.nielsen.com or www.nielsen.com/investors and connect with us on social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram).

SOURCE Nielsen