By India McCarty
Streaming reached a major new milestone this past December.
“Streaming hit a new record in December, accounting for 47.5% of all TV viewing, according to the latest edition of Nielsen‘s monthly Gauge report,” Deadline reported, pointing to the Christmas Day NFL games as what pushed streaming over the top.
The games drew a collective 55.1 billion viewing minutes for the three games, available only on Netflix and Amazon.
Streaming hit a new record in December, accounting for 47.5% of all TV viewing, according to the latest edition of Nielsen‘s monthly Gauge report.
Three NFL games on Christmas Day contributed to the surge https://t.co/82LXKa7Ja8
Related: Streaming Just Beat Out Traditional TV—Again
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) January 20, 2026
Sports have been a major draw for streamers looking to increase their viewership numbers. Last year, YouTube’s first-ever exclusive, global broadcast of an NFL game “set a record for most concurrent viewers of a live stream on YouTube,” per a press release from YouTube.
“The broadcast drew a global audience of over 17.3M average-minute-audience,” YouTube reported, adding, “Fans tuned in from over 230 countries and territories around the globe.”
STRANGER THINGS also helped boost streaming in December — new episodes accounted for a 54% share of daily TV usage, which was the highest Nielsen has ever recorded for streaming since it began running the Gauge report in 2020.
The finale of the massively popular sci-fi show pushed STRANGER THINGS into Netflix’s list of 10 most-watched English-language series ever. The episode drew 31.3 million views worldwide, giving the show’s final season a total of 105.7 million views.
“As of publication time, STRANGER THINGS 5 is just 300,000 views behind BRIDGERTON season three on the English-language top 10 all time and within 14 million views of fourth place (WEDNESDAY season two with 119.3 million views),” The Hollywood Reporter wrote earlier this month.
Streaming recently hit a new benchmark. Ampere Analysis reported that, for the first time ever, streaming platforms outspent traditional broadcasters.
“Streamers are expected to pump a jaw-dropping $101 billion into content this year, marking a 6% jump from 2025,” Android Headlines reported, citing Ampere’s research. For context, that’s “roughly 40% of all global spending.”
Android Headlines continued, “Four out of every ten dollars being spent on TV shows and movies worldwide is coming from streaming services,” Android Headlines continued, adding that traditional TV is “struggling to keep up.”
“The reasons aren’t exactly surprising — advertising revenue keeps taking hits, production costs won’t stop climbing and viewers just aren’t watching linear TV the way they used to,” the outlet continued. “It’s a perfect storm, and traditional networks are caught right in the middle of it.”
With viewership numbers like these, it’s no surprise that streaming services are putting major money into their content.
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