Nielsen: Streaming Hit All-Time High In December

Nielsen has announced that The Gauge, its monthly total TV and streaming snapshot, revealed that streaming in the U.S. reached a new all-time weekly high of over 183 billion minutes of video in December 2021, giving over-the-top platforms a record-breaking 33% share of total TV viewing during the week of Christmas.

According to The Gauge, aggregate viewing for streaming platforms surpassed the previous-high of 178 billion minutes streamed during Thanksgiving week in November 2021. Prior to that, the 160 billion minutes streamed during March 2020 was the highest total. The overall percentage share for streaming remained flat from the previous month at 28%. Cable viewing continued to account for the largest percentage as measured by The Gauge, with just over 37% total share of viewership.

The Gauge also shows that broadcast viewing dropped one share point, while the "Other" category, which includes video on-demand content, cable set top box streaming, gaming, and DVD usage, gained 1.6% share on the strength of video gaming's premiere season.

Additionally, The Gauge has now expanded the granularity of usage data, displaying an additional decimal point to better reflect and delineate month-to-month changes in viewing share.

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.