Nielsen: Sports Was TV Feast In November

Driven by the Thanksgiving holiday week, total TV usage increased 5.7% in November, with broadcast gaining 0.3 share points to equal its share in January—both high points for the year, according to the latest Gauge reports from Nielsen.

While TV usage was up nearly 3% during the first three weeks of the month, viewing during the fourth week, fueled by big rivalries in college football and an expanded array of NFL games, jumped 14.4% over October levels.

With some of the most popular football matches airing in late November, broadcast usage increased 18.4% in the last week of the month, and viewership for sports programming was up 21% from October to account for one-third of all broadcast viewing. And while overall broadcast viewing is down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis, sports viewing on broadcast channels is up 2.8%.

With football being a staple on broadcast channels in November, cable is a prime destination for holiday movies, and this year was no exception: viewing of movies was up 26% from October to account for 19% of cable viewing, making it the highest-viewed cable genre this month. Feature film viewership even surpassed the category’s typical front runner—cable news—which accounted for 18.4% of cable viewing this month. Movie viewership notwithstanding, cable gave up 1.2 share points in November as news and sports viewing slipped 0.6% and 16%, respectively.

With total TV usage up in the month, the 4.3% increase in streaming wasn’t enough to prevent a share loss of 0.5 in November. Nielsen reporrts he last week of the month drove the bulk of the increase for streaming, as viewing jumped 10% during the week of Thanksgiving. Peacock was the biggest gainer, as usage increased 23% to provide a 0.2 share point gain, driven by football coverage and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

Netflix also gained 0.2 share point as a result of an increase in usage of 8.6% to finish the month at 7.4% of TV usage. All the Light We Cannot See provided a viewing highlight in a climate with less content as a result of the writers’ strike, as audiences spent 2.1 billion minutes watching this Netflix original miniseries. Tubi and YouTube also saw usage gains, but only Tubi was able to add to its share, while YouTube’s share fell slightly as it was not enough to keep up with the increase in overall TV usage.