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Disney Tops All TV Viewership in May
By Movieguide® Contributor
Nielsen’s newest viewership metric, which combines all of a company’s subsidiaries, saw Disney top the list in May.
While YouTube and Netflix have appeared to dominate their competition since the beginning of 2023, a new data metric from Nielsen has revealed that companies with legacy and streaming offerings can hold their own.
This is best illustrated by Disney who, when accounting for its streaming services and its cable/broadcast channels, beats out even YouTube for TV usage, accounting for 11.4% of all usage in May. While YouTube still ranks second at 9.7% of TV viewing, NBC Universal (9%), Paramount (8.8%) and Warner Bros. Discovery (8.1%) all beat out the streaming world’s darling: Netflix (7.6%).
Nielsen’s new metric, which was unveiled last month and extends back to November 2023, gives a more accurate look into the impact these companies have on the entertainment industry.
The Media Distributor Gauge 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,” Nielsen explained.
This new data completely flips the script on the importance of streaming, as even the companies struggling in the streaming war, hold higher viewership than Netflix. Paramount+, for example, has placed the entire company in jeopardy as the company has lost $4.5 billion since 2020 with an additional $0.9 billion loss expected this year. Largely seen as a failure, Paramount+ only captures 1% of TV viewership.
The company as a whole, however, arguably remains more relevant than Netflix, as its cable offerings boost its TV viewership well above that of the top streamer’s.
YouTube coming in second place, however, further reinforces the company’s impact on entertainment as it can hang with and beat out the biggest players in cable and streaming. As its market share only continues to grow, it will be interesting to see if it will eventually top every other company even when all of their TV viewership is combined.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Nielsen has released data revealing the media companies that have garnered the most watch time. Disney took first place.
Nielsen’s new Media Distributor Gauge 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.”
In April — and for the last six months — Disney had the most total TV usage, taking 11.5% of all views for the month. YouTube followed with 9.6%.
The Hollywood Reporter clarified that these numbers include multiple Disney-owned platforms.
“That figure includes streaming on Hulu and Disney+ — which accounted for 4.9 percent of all TV use for the reporting period (which ran from April 1-28) — as well as ABC, ESPN and Disney’s other cable and streaming properties. ABC and ESPN carried the most watched single telecast in April — the record-breaking NCAA women’s basketball championship game, which clocked in at 18.87 million viewers,” the outlet reported.
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