Streamers had a holiday season full of football and blockbusters.
According to Nielsen ratings of its December 2024 gauge report (which represents viewership from November 25 to December 29), TV viewing increased 4% month-over-month, with streamers gaining a large share of audience time.
Linear still outperforms streaming in terms of individual broadcasts, Fox’s Thanksgiving game between the Giants and Cowboys attracted 38.5 million viewers; however, several streamers reached (or were close to) record highs. With a Increase of 7.6% in Novemberstreaming viewership grew another 9% in December and the category set a new record with 43.4% of total TV viewing time.
Netflix was a big winner, with the fifth and sixth best TV shows of the month thanks to its NFL Christmas Day games, both of which attracted more than 23 million viewers. The streamer accounted for 8.5% of total TV viewing last month, matching its best platform share, set in July 2023. With the help of Christmas Day games, Netflix saw an increase of 14% month over month.
Speaking ahead of Netflix’s results on Tuesday, Mike Proulx, vice president and director of research at Forrester, highlighted the streamer’s strong fourth quarter.
“Netflix has a lot to tout after a fourth quarter with a number of key milestones that, not coincidentally, all involve sports,” Proulx said, adding that the company will likely promote “a lot more of live programming events during 2025″.
According to Gauge, calculations showed that monthly usage of the streaming service would have increased by 11%, even if contributions from games had not been included. Netflix saw a boost thanks to its action thriller Carry-On starring Taron Egerton, which generated 5.2 billion minutes of viewing between December 13 and 29 and became the third most-streamed title during that period. Squid Game Season 2 also accounted for 4.9 billion minutes watched in the final week of the period, the highest weekly total for any streaming title last year.
Additionally, almost all reported streaming platforms posted gains. YouTube grew 9%, pushing the platform to a record 11.1% share of TV usage. Meanwhile, Prime Video achieved a platform-best 4.0% TV market share since hosting five NFL Thursday Night Football games, including one on Black Friday during the period of December. The platform also received a boost from the hit film Red One, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Chris Evans, and the original reality series Beast Games, starring popular YouTube creator Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, which logged 700 million minutes of viewing in its first three episodes.
Showing the strength of streaming beyond live events, Max saw a monthly audience increase of 18% in December, the largest of any streaming platform. These increases are due to its library of shows such as The Big Bang Theory, Friends and Dune: Prophecy.
Nielsen’s The Gauge will be streaming for December.Nielsen
Broadcast and cable relied heavily on football in December, with each seeing sports viewership increases of 17% and 29%, respectively, due to the NFL, college bowl games and the first round of the College Football Playoffs. Cable also saw an 18% increase in feature film viewing.
However, the broadcast and cable industries also faced seasonal declines. Broadcast networks pulled back on scripted drama series during the holiday season, leading to an 18% decline in that genre, and cable news, after the presidential election cycle, fell 27%. , according to the report.
Overall, broadcast and cable viewing accounted for 22.4% and 23.8% of TV viewing time in December, respectively, and 46.2% of TV viewing combined.
