Nielsen: Traditional TV Gets a Boost from Football and News

Nielsen’s January 2025 report of The Gauge™ revealed that TV viewing in January was up 5% compared with an already robust December, driven largely by current events and seasonal factors. Football again played a significant role in January’s monthly viewing uptick, with games across the NFL and NCAA drawing big audiences and contributing to share increases for both broadcast (+0.1pt., 22.5%) and cable (+0.6pt., 24.4%). 

The NFL AFC Championship game on CBS drew this month’s largest audience with 57.4 million viewers on Sunday, January 26, followed by the NFC Championship game, which brought in 44.2 million viewers on FOX on the same day. Coverage of the College Football Playoffs on ESPN, in addition to other various bowl games, helped drive a 42% bump in cable sports viewing in January. What’s more, the seven CFP games included in the January report (four Quarterfinals, two Semifinals and the National Championship) accounted for the top seven cable telecasts this month, led by the 22.1 million viewers that watched the National Championship Game on January 20.

January also highlighted how consumers’ viewing habits have evolved to become more flexible when seeking out preferred content across various distribution platforms. Prime Video exclusively streamed the NFL Wild Card playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens on January 11, which in turn helped drive the second-highest day of streaming on record. Behind the current all-time high of 51.2 billion streaming minutes set on Christmas Day 2024, January 11, 2025 produced over 47 billion streaming minutes in total.

The Gauge Classic - Jan2025 - BFCommentary

Outside of sports events, traditional television drew audiences by other means as well. Overall broadcast viewing was up 5.1% in January, benefiting from increases to drama series (+15%) and news (+18%). The top non-sports broadcast telecasts in January were an eclectic mix led by ABC’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with 17.9 million viewers, followed by the post-AFC Championship premier of Watson on CBS with 10.8 million, and the Golden Globe Awards on CBS with 9.7 million. Meanwhile, cable viewing exhibited a 7% monthly increase, and, in addition to the 42% lift in sports viewership, cable also benefited from a 26% increase in news viewing. FOX News Channel dominated non-sports telecasts this month, led by its Inauguration Day coverage.

From a streaming perspective, streaming viewership in January was up 3% versus December and the category accounted for the largest share of television with 42.6%. On a year-over-year basis, streaming usage grew 21% compared with January 2024, and the category has gained 6.6% share of TV viewing.

Notable among streaming platforms: 

• Netflix followed a robust December with an even stronger January, as viewership rose 7% to lead the streamer to a new platform record of 8.6% of TV. Netflix’s big month was due in large part to Squid Game, which generated 9 billion viewing minutes as January’s top streaming title.
• The Roku Channel also extended its growth streak and notched a fourth consecutive month of platform-best achievement, increasing viewership by 9% in January to reach 2.1% of TV.
• As indicated in the December 2024 Gauge report, this marks the first month that Disney’s streaming entities (Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+) are consolidated into a single share. “Disney Streaming” began the year with a 4.7% share of TV. Bluey, which received Nielsen’s first ARTEY Award for top streaming title in 2024, was January’s second most-streamed program with 4.7 billion viewing minutes accumulated on Disney+.
• The Paramount+ original series Landman rounded out the top three streaming titles in January with 4.4 billion viewing minutes, and helped the streamer tie its platform best share with 1.4% of TV.

Note: Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ viewing have been aggregated into a single total represented as “Disney Streaming” beginning with the January 2025 Gauge report. This change is due to Disney making Hulu and ESPN+ content available within the Disney+ app for certain subscribers, which could affect crediting between Disney’s streaming properties as it relates to The Gauge.