Sports and Summer Season Drive Streaming to Record 48.6% of TV Viewership in May

As the summer kicked off, streaming saw its share of TV viewership climb to a record 48.6% share in May.

In comparison, broadcast accounted for 19.2% of TV viewership for the month, respectively. While broadcast sports viewership rebounded slightly (+3%), broadcast dramas (-13%) and sitcoms (-10%) were impacted by the conclusion of the broadcast season in the final weeks of the month.

Meanwhile, cable accounted for 20.4% of TV viewership, which was boosted by the NBA playoffs but was not enough to offset a 16% drop in cable news viewership.

YouTube continued to lead the pack, climbing to a record 13.8% of TV viewing among streaming platforms and media distributors.

Netflix followed behind in second on the platform side with an 8% share of TV viewership, but fell to fourth on the distributor side. The service was boosted by the acquired series “La Brea,” which was the second most-streamed title of the month with over 4 billion viewing minutes.

Meanwhile, Disney finished in second on the distributor side with a 10% share of TV viewing and third on the platform side with a 4.9% share across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. ESPN was up 16% and owned the top six cable telecasts in May, driven by its coverage of the NBA Playoffs.

NBCUniversal and Versant finished in third in the Media Distributor Gauge with a combined 8.4% of TV viewing, with NBC owning the top two broadcast telecasts in May: the annual Kentucky Derby with over 18 million viewers and Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals with over 12 million viewers. Peacock accounted for just 1.8% of NBCU’s 6.2% share for the month, while Versant made up another 2.2%.

Following behind in fifth was Paramount, whose total TV viewership share for May was 7.7%. Paramount’s streaming services hit a 2.3% share, a 7% increase over April and the largest usage gain of the month among streaming platforms driven by initial episodes of new Paramount+ original series “Dutton Ranch” and library content like “Spongebob Squarepants.”

David Ellison’s $110 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery is notably being being held up by litigation with a group of 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. WBD finished May with a 5.7% share of TV viewership, with its streaming services making up 1.5% of that total.

Other notable highlights include Amazon’s Prime Video, which posted its best share of TV to date with 4.5% of usage, finishing fourth among the individual streaming platforms, but eighth among distributors.

The share gain was driven by an 18% increase in viewership by 18 to 24 year olds, “The Boys” and its coverage of 20 live sporting events, including 12 NBA Playoff games, six WNBA games and two NASCAR Cup Series races. The sports events drove 7.5 billion viewing minutes combined on the platform, while the “Boys” generated 5 billion viewing minutes and was the most-watched streaming title of the month.

The Roku Channel also recorded a new platform best in May with 3.1% of total TV usage, driven by a 13% bump from kids and teens. The company is set to be acquired by Fox, which had a total viewership share of 6.1% for the month, with 2.3% of that coming from Tubi.

Elsewhere, Scripps finished the month with a 1.6% share, followed by A+E Networks (0.9%), Hallmark (0.8%) and AMC Networks (0.6%).