Nielsen Launches The Media Distributor Gauge

Nielsen has launched The Media Distributor Gauge, a first of its kind, cross-platform view of total TV consumption across broadcast, cable and streaming, aggregated and ranked by media company. The new insight removes the siloes of traditional television versus streaming, and puts all content distributors on a level playing field to allow for additional perspective of TV viewing today. 

This new view is being released in addition to The Gauge™ report for April 2024.

“With more programs available across platforms, it’s vital for creators, advertisers and the industry at large to understand what and where audiences are watching,” said Karthik Rao, CEO of Nielsen. “The Media Distributor Gauge is a perfect complement to the The Gauge and serves as the first convergent TV comparison of its kind. Together, these reports paint the most complete picture of TV viewing today, which is critical as we head into the Upfront.”

This new insight is created by mapping all the various national media distributors — including broadcast and cable networks and streaming services — up to their parent company. Nielsen calculates the total minutes viewed on the TV screen for each network’s services and aggregates those totals based on initial distributor mapping, ultimately arriving at a share of total TV usage for each parent company. The minimum reporting threshold for a parent company in The Media Distributor Gauge is a 1.0% share of TV. Similar to the fluctuation of monthly TV usage tracked in The Gauge, rankings within the media company view will also demonstrate shifts that correlate with the seasonality of TV viewing.

In Nielsen’s first report of The Media Distributor Gauge, 14 media companies achieved a 1.0% or greater share of total TV usage. As the top performer in April, Disney accounted for 11.5% of TV viewing, with 42% of its share attributable to viewing on Disney+ and Hulu. YouTube was the No. 2 overall company with a 9.6% share of TV in April, followed by NBCUniversal at 8.9%, Paramount at 8.8%, and Warner Bros. Discovery at 8.1% to round out the top five. Netflix was sixth with 7.6% of TV, and the second-highest streaming distributor reported.