Building on Industry-Defining The Gauge™, New
Insight Shows Total Cross-Platform View of Audience Engagement by
Media Company
Disney Tops April Media Distributor Gauge,
Claiming 11.5% of Time Spent Watching TV
NEW
YORK, May 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Nielsen, a
global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, today
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, which is detailed below.
For an additional breakdown of both reports, check out video
commentary from Brian Fuhrer, SVP,
Product Strategy and Thought Leadership at Nielsen.
"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.
The Gauge™: Nielsen's monthly snapshot of total TV usage in
April 2024
April saw
record-breaking viewership: the NCAA women's basketball tournament
coverage on broadcast and cable, and Amazon Prime Video's new
original series Fallout, which set a new high watermark for the
streamer as its most successful program to date. From an overall
usage perspective, time spent watching TV was fairly flat both
month-over-month (down 2%) and on an annual basis (down 0.6%).
Across the primary viewing categories:
- Cable was the only category in The Gauge to escape
decline as it achieved a second consecutive monthly increase in
share, moving up from 28.3% of TV in March to 29.1% (+0.8 pt.) in
April. Cable sports viewing increased 28% vs. March, bolstered by
NCAA basketball tournament coverage, NBA playoffs and the NFL
draft. Women's NCAA basketball finals and semifinals coverage
accounted for four of the top six cable telecasts in April, and the
WNBA draft notched 17th. While cable viewing increased about 1% on
a monthly basis, a year-over-year comparison shows viewing has
declined 8.2% vs. April 2023, and its
share has lost 2.4 points.
- Broadcast viewing was down 3% in April, which
equated to a 22.2% share of TV (-0.3 pt.). Similar to cable,
women's sports were the bright spot in the broadcast category this
month. The NCAA women's basketball championship game drew 17.6
million viewers on ABC (plus over 1 million more on ESPN), making
it the top broadcast telecast in April by a large margin. The drama
genre accounted for 29% of broadcast viewing, driven by Tracker,
NCIS and Young Sheldon on CBS, and
Chicago Fire and Chicago Med on
NBC.
- Streaming viewership declined 1.9% from March to
April, prompting the category to lose just 0.1 share point to
account for 38.4% of total television. Amazon Prime Video saw the
largest increase among streaming services this month with a 12%
monthly increase for 3.2% of TV (+0.4 pt.). Prime Video's April
success was driven by its original series Fallout, which also
topped all streaming titles this month with over 7 billion viewing
minutes. YouTube, despite a 3% monthly decline in viewing, added a
15th month to its streak as the top streaming platform in The Gauge
with a 9.6% share of TV in April.
About The Gauge™
The Gauge™ is Nielsen's monthly
snapshot of total broadcast, cable and streaming consumption that
occurs through a television screen. It was expanded in the
April 2024 report to include The
Media Distributor Gauge, which reflects total viewing by media
distributor across these categories. Underpinned by Nielsen's
National TV measurement and Streaming Platform Ratings services, in
addition to complimentary insights from its Streaming Content
Ratings service, The Gauge provides the industry with a holistic
look at the various content audiences are watching. The latest
edition of The Gauge is always available at
nielsen.com/thegauge.
About Nielsen
Nielsen shapes the world's media and
content as a global leader in audience measurement, data and
analytics. Through our understanding of people and their behaviors
across all channels and platforms, we empower our clients with
independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and
engage with their audiences—now and into the future. Nielsen
operates around the world in more than 55 countries. Learn more
at www.nielsen.com and connect with us on social media
(Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram).
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SOURCE Nielsen