TV Use Drops in February, but Super Bowl Sunday Sets Records
By Movieguide® Contributor
While TV use dropped last month, 123.7 million viewers tuned into February’s Super Bowl Sunday, setting records for American TV viewership.
“Americans spent more time with their TV sets on Super Bowl Sunday than any day in the past three years,” The Hollywood Reporter said.
“On Feb. 11, viewers in the United States spent a collective 111 billion minutes watching TV — fueled, obviously, by Super Bowl 58’s record-breaking audience of more than 123 million viewers across all platforms,” The Hollywood Reporter said. “That’s the highest single-day viewing tally since Nielsen began tracking total TV usage in May 2021. With a running time of just over four hours, the Super Bowl totaled about 30.4 billion minutes of viewing on its own, and post-game coverage on CBS tallied 2.15 billion more minutes.”
“The previous single-day high for total TV use came on Jan. 16, 2022, a day featuring three NFL playoff games,” The Hollywood Reporter observed. “That day totaled about 108 billion minutes of viewing time.”
The Super Bowl may have set records, but TV viewership dropped in February. It decreased 6.4% from the previous month.
Nielsen reported, “The 6.4% dip in viewership for the month was considerably larger than it was in the previous two years (5.7% and 5.1%, respectively).”
In February, overall TV usage (broadcast and cable) sat at 50.9%, a higher percentage than last summer.
Movieguide® reported:
This is the first time linear TV viewing has fallen below 50% in the Nielsen ratings since they began tracking TV viewing by platform two years ago.
The Hollywood Reporter stated that overall TV use was up in July but that the growth came from streaming services “which hit an all-time high of 38.7 percent of all TV usage — and the ‘other use’ category, which includes video games played on a TV screen and physical media playback, among other things. That made up 11.6 percent of usage.”
The Hollywood Reporter said about last month, “Streaming platforms, however, had their biggest month since August 2023, capturing 37.7 percent of TV use. Other TV usage, including gaming and physical media playback, accounted for the remainder. A good portion of streaming’s gains came from FAST services, with Tubi (1.7 percent of all TV use) and the Roku Channel (1.2 percent) each hitting highs. YouTube also had its best Gauge showing to date with 9.3 percent of all TV use.”
PR Newswire credits the streaming success to popular shows like YOUNG SHELDON, BLUEY, GRISELDA and GREY’S ANATOMY.
