Nielsen says linear still leads ad-supported TV viewing
Nielsen identifies five key trends for the upcoming 2025 Upfronts, including linear TV maintaining its lead in ad-supported viewing, the growth of multiplatform TV experiences, increased competition among streaming services, the rising importance of sports content across both linear and streaming, and the opportunity for streamers to reach diverse audiences through multi-language and deep-library content. These trends are supported by Nielsen's data, including its Gauge and Ad-Supported Gauge reports.
Key Takeaways
- In Nielsen’s Ad Supported Gauge, broadcast and cable take 57.6% of ad-supported viewing time, compared with 42.4% for streaming.
- Nielsen frames TV as a multiplatform business, citing Peacock’s Olympics coverage, Tubi’s Super Bowl audience, and CBS’s Fire Country moving across broadcast, Netflix, and Paramount+.
- Netflix still leads streaming, but Nielsen says March’s top-10 chart included entries from seven different companies, up from eight of the top 10 held by Netflix five years ago.
- Sports accounted for nearly 20% of total viewing time among adults 25-54 in 2024, and Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football averaged over 14 million viewers last season.
- Netflix and YouTube together account for about a third of total television time among Hispanic and Asian viewers, while The Roku Channel and Tubi over-index among Black audiences.
Why It Matters
For ad buyers, Nielsen’s read is straightforward: linear TV still offers the larger ad-supported reach, even as streaming closes the gap in total TV usage. The bigger strategic shift is that reach now comes from coordinated use of broadcast, cable, and streaming within the same portfolio, not from a single platform alone. That matters for services trying to sell both scale and audience segmentation in the same upfront cycle. Watch the next Gauge and Ad Supported Gauge releases for whether streaming’s 42.4% share of ad-supported viewing keeps moving toward linear’s 57.6%.
Read full article at nielsen.com
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