Total TV usage trended down another 1.9% in April, as is typical when the weather starts to warm up. According to Nielsen, despite the drop in total usage, an active news cycle contributed to a second month of share gains for cable, which picked up 0.4 share points to account for 31.5% of TV usage. The gain represents the first back-to-back increase for cable since the launch of The GaugeTM in May 2021.
The strength of the news cycle helped cable remain largely stable from a usage perspective, as cable viewing was down just 0.6% from March. In fact, news was the only cable genre that didn’t experience a dip in usage. News viewing was up 4.3%, accounting for 19% of cable usage in April. Former President Trump’s court appearance in New York on April 4 fueled daily usage spikes of 93%, 44% and 39% on CNN, FOX News and MSNBC, respectively. On a year-over-year perspective, cable content viewership was down 12% (5.3 share points).
In the streaming space, competition is causing shifts in usage shares, while seasonality contributed to a 2.1% dip in viewing across the category. Netflix viewing, for example, dropped 7%, translating to a loss of 0.4 share point, despite having the top two programs from a viewing perspective: The Night Agent and Love is Blind. Comparatively, usage increased across the two newest free, ad-supported options in The Gauge: Tubi TV usage grew 6% and Pluto TV usage increased 3.9%.
Other highlights:
- While Disney+ viewership was down 1.7%, The Mandalorian was the third-most streamed title in April.
- YouTube, excluding YouTube TV, remained the most-used platform, with usage increasing 1.5% to help the platform capture 8.1% of TV usage.
- Viewership to “other streaming” resulted in an increase of 0.1 share points in April, with multiple platforms inching toward the 1% threshold to be reported individually.
No comments:
Post a Comment