The Walt Disney Company extended its lead over YouTube in Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge in January, accounting for 12% of time spent watching TV – its best monthly share since the report was established in November 2023 – compared to YouTube’s 10.8%.
The increase was boosted by Disney’s airing of the College Football Playoffs, which represented the seven highest rated cable telecasts during the month and drove an 84% monthly increase in ESPN viewership. Overall, viewing to Disney-owned entities was up 12% versus December, or an increase of 0.8 share points.
Rounding out the top five was Paramount Global with an 8.9% share, Netflix with a record 8.6% share and NBCUniversal with an 8.1% share. Netflix saw watch time climb 7%, in large part to “Squid Game” generating 9 billion viewing minutes to become the month’s top streaming title.
Overall TV viewing increased 5% for the month, which was boosted 26% from cable news viewing, including 26% at MSNBC, 29% at Fox News Channel and 39% at CNN. Though Fox finished in sixth with a 7.6% share, it tied with Disney for the largest monthly viewing increase among distributors.
In addition to sports, scripted drama series and news programming as well as special events such as ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” and The Golden Globes helped boost cable and broadcast viewing.
Rounding out the remainder of the list was Warner Bros. Discovery with a share of 6.1%, Amazon with a share of 3.7%, The Roku Channel with a share of 2.1%, Scripps with a share of 2%, Weigel Broadcasting with a share of 1.3%, A+E Networks with a share of 1.1%, Hallmark with a share of 1% and AMC Networks with a share of 0.8%.
Consistent with the transition away from the holidays, cable movie viewing in January dropped 22% versus December, which contributed to a decline of 0.6 share points for Hallmark, breaking its streak after two consecutive monthly gains.
Despite being second in the Media Distributor Gauge, YouTube has repeatedly led Nielsen’s monthly Gauge report, most recently with a share of 10.8%, compared to Disney’s combined 4% across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.
The streaming category accounted for the largest share of television viewing with 42.6%, up 3% month-over-month and usage up 21% year-over-year.
Meanwhile, broadcast grew by 5.1% month-over-month to a total share of 22.5%, while cable jumped 7% for the month to a total share of 24.4%.
