NEW YORK—Nielsen’s newest edition of the Ad Supported Gauge shows that the total share of ad-supported TV is holding steady in Q1 2026, representing nearly 73% of overall TV viewing while streaming captured a record share of ad-supported TV viewing.

In the quarter, streaming captured a record-high 46.6% share of ad-supported TV, driven by seasonal events including NBCU’s Super Bowl simulcast, Olympics coverage on Peacock, Amazon’s NFL playoff games, and additional episodes of blockbuster series like Stranger Things on Netflix, Landman on Paramount+, and The Pitt on HBO Max.

Overall, sports continue to be a driving force behind the consistently high share of ad supported TV. The fourth quarter, with its blockbuster sports schedule, retained the high water mark for share of ad supported TV, but there is less than a 1.8 share point difference between the highest and lowest quarter.

Coming off a five-quarter high in Q4, broadcast captured a 28.2% share of ad-supported TV viewing in Q1, down 1.4 share points from last quarter and down 0.5 points year-over-year.

Cable rebounded to a 25.2% share (up 0.4 points from Q4), driven by the February 2026 Olympics and its traditional March Madness ratings surge.

In releasing the data, Nielsen noted that the published version of The Ad Supported Gauge has not migrated to the ARF DASH-based media related universe estimates which is planned for the fall. This is significant because this approach, while consistent with previous months of the Gauge, will have different results than production data.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has released a new study documenting the growing influence and size of the North American soccer fan base with data showing there are over 136 million soccer fans in North America, up 10.9% from 5 years ago, and that the U.S. now has the fourth largest soccer fanbase in the world with 62.5 million fans.

“The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition” report examines audience, engagement, content and format and utilised trended data to explore the current fan landscape in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

Key findings include:

• Over the past 5 years soccer fandom in North America has experienced significant growth - with a 10.9% leap from May 2020 to May 2025, marked by surging viewership of TV broadcasts.
• The US has the fourth largest soccer fanbase in the world with 62.5 million fans
• 64% of fans expect their interest in soccer to keep climbing
• Soccer is the world’s most popular sport and the most popular sport in Mexico (63%) with the average Mexican fan following the sport for around 14 years. In the US and Canada, soccer faces more competition. It ranks 3rd (37%) in Canada and 4th (31%) in the USA, trailing to domestic sports like ice hockey, and American football.

• About a quarter of soccer fans in North America became a fan in the last 5 years, with the majority (68%) of fans claiming their interest has increased in the last 3 years as the build up to the FIFA World Cup 2026™ intensified.
• Soccer fans in the U.S. are younger (33) and more affluent than the US general population.
• 76% of U.S. soccer fans are Millennials or Gen Z
• Higher female engagement is a key differentiator in North America vs Europe (43% vs 36%)
• Across North America, soccer plays a significant / extremely significant role in the livelihood of individuals including personal enjoyment (29%), social connection and community (14%), family bonding and tradition (12%), and physical fitness and health benefits (11%).
• North America follows similar media engagement patterns to Europe, with 72% watching the game via TV or streaming platforms (47%) with social media (47%) being the next most popular.
• More Mexicans (51%) are likely to watch broadcasts of live matches - usually with family and friends (the ones that brought them into the sport) at home.
• Canadians lean into short-form content (33%), preferring to watch highlights and social media content.

The report also delved into the economic impact FIFA can create.

For example, the FIFA Club World Cup last summer (June 14 to July 13, 2025) in major U.S. cities was a huge commercial success with the economic outcome generating a Gross Output of $17.1 billion and contributing $9.6 billion to the Gross Domestic Product in the U.S. The research shows the event created 105,000 Full-Time Equivalent jobs and generated $5.8 billion in Labor Income. The event is projected to generate $1.9 billion in direct and indirect taxes for the government.

More information on “The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition” can be found at Nielsen.com.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has announced a new integration with Mediaocean’s Prisma platform that will improve audience measurement and allow marketers to maintain a single, consistent audience definition throughout the campaign lifecycle.

This integration and its resulting capabilities will officially launch in September, just in time for the fall TV season, Nielsen said.

Prisma is an enterprise-level, end-to-end media management and campaign execution platform that acts as a central “system of record” for advertising agencies and brands, that is designed to unify workflows across digital, linear (TV/radio), print and out-of-home (OOH) channels.

As part of the integration, Nielsen will provide reporting on advanced audience segments for data-driven linear (DDL) national TV campaigns to expand the integration of its Big Data + Panel audience measurement solution directly within Mediaocean’s Prisma platform.

This will help drive greater industry interoperability by allowing marketers to maintain a single, consistent audience definition throughout advertising campaigns. Clients can define advanced audience segments (first- and third-party and Nielsen-owned) within Nielsen Audience Builder and then see the corresponding measurement metrics directly within Mediaocean.

This will allow marketers to move beyond traditional age and gender based demographics by enabling more advanced audience definitions to be applied consistently across ad planning and measurement workflows.

The collaboration also brings greater continuity and visibility into data-driven linear campaigns, giving advertisers a better way to understand and evaluate multi-screen ad performance.

“Advertising’s next frontier will be built on true interoperability — not just data sharing, but a consistent audience definition that travels from planning all the way through to measurement,” explained Nielsen Chief Product Officer Akhil Parekh. “Together with Mediaocean, we're giving marketers exactly that: the ability to define audiences once and then to carry that precision across the entire campaign lifecycle.”

“The big theme here is consistency,” said Prisma Chief Product Officer Drew Kane. “As the advertising ecosystem becomes increasingly fragmented, maintaining a consistent audience definition across planning, activation, and measurement has become a challenge. By teaming up with Nielsen, we are helping to create a more connected workflow that brings greater visibility and alignment across the marketing journey.”

In addition, Nielsen announced that S&P Global Mobility is integrating insights from its Polk Automotive Solutions Portfolio, a leader in automotive advanced audiences insights, so that marketers can better reach customers in this sector. (Polk intelligence encompasses nearly 35 years of vehicle owner history, more than one billion vehicle transactions annually, and more than 650 million vehicles tracked daily.)

That means marketers and agencies can now leverage Polk Audiences across Nielsen’s planning and measurement products, including Nielsen Audience Builder, Nielsen Media Impact, Nielsen ONE Planning and Nielsen ONE Ads. These audiences will also be available against Nielsen's Big Data+Panel data and integrated into Nielsen's digital planning/measurement solutions.

In addition, MRI-Simmons and S&P Global Mobility are expanding advanced audience capabilities into Nielsen ONE.

MRI-Simmons, a leading provider of survey-based insights about American consumers, is expanding its relationship with Nielsen to deliver new, research-driven audience insights within Nielsen ONE planning and measurement tools.

Taken together, these developments mean improved campaign performance, via even better data-driven planning, measurement, and optimization capabilities, Nielsen reported.

NEW YORK—They may have fallen short in the Western Conference finals, but the Oklahoma City Thunder topped the list of most-watched NBA teams in 2025-26, drawing 1.8 million viewers per game in the regular season, according to Nielsen viewing data.

The No. 2 team was the Los Angeles Lakers—the team that boasted the most-watched player, per Nielsen, in LeBron James—followed by the Eastern Conference champion New York Knicks.

Another participant in this week’s NBA Finals, San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama, trailed James as the league’s second-most-watched player.

Nielsen’s Spring 2026 “Tops of Sports’ report also noted double-digit growth in viewership across pro basketball (up 27%), NHL hockey (25%), auto racing (44%) and golf (12%*), fueled by new streaming and broadcast options, the massive popularity of global stars and changing ways that fans follow their favorite teams.

More specifically, the NBA’s average audience for regular-season games was up 27%, with the early rounds of the playoffs seeing a 10% bump. The league benefited from new media-rights deals that helped it reach younger viewers on streamers Prime Video, Peacock and ESPN Unlimited while still drawing larger audiences on broadcasters ABC and NBC and cable network ESPN.

The NHL is also experiencing a major boost, with average regular-season viewership up 25% to 540,000 viewers per game, and the first round of the playoffs up 77%, to 1.2 million viewers. The growth was bolstered by significant cultural moments involving hockey, such as the gold medal wins by the U.S. men’s and women’s ice hockey teams at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, Prime Video’s hit series “Off-Campus” and drama series “Heated Rivalry” on HBO Max, which notched nearly 2 billion streaming minutes in the first quarter, Nielsen said.

Followers of the NHL’s official TikTok account were up 83% this season, Nielsen reported. Further demonstrating America’s growing interest, the national TV debut of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) drew about 133,000 viewers to Ion, with 45% of the audience women 18-plus. In addition, demonstrating the buying power of hockey fans, NHL viewers rank No. 3 in median income among all sports watchers.

Last year’s Indianapolis 500 averaged more than 7 million viewers, the most in 17 years. The 2026 IndyCar season is already off to a strong start, with the first five races averaging 1.2 million viewers, 44% higher than the same period in 2025. Viewer interest is also rising, with 19% of respondents reporting being somewhat or very interested in IndyCar this March, up from 15% in March of 2023.

So far this year, the PGA Tour is averaging 1.5 million viewers. Efforts to evolve the franchise’s social media presence may be paying off, as Nielsen Scarborough data shows a steady increase in interest since 2023. *An influx of young Asian talent like Collin Morikawa, Akshay Bhatia, and Si Woo Kim looks to be helping to expand the tour’s audience, with Asian viewership to PGA Tour events up 12% so far this year.

NEW YORK—A new Nielsen report on Asian and Asian-American content and audiences indicates that Asian-led stories, talent, and cultural touchpoints are driving engagement and viewership across every major demographic group, not just Asian American audiences.

The new 2026 report “The Crossover Effect: AANHPI Audiences X Content” found that “K-Pop Demon Hunters” delivered 20.5 billion minutes of viewing as the #1 streamed movie of 2025 among Hispanic, Asian, Black, and White viewers and that “BTS: The Return” drew 47 million minutes of viewing in its first seven days with 73% of the audience being non-Asian.

“The proliferation of Asian and Asian American-driven content is not a trend, it’s a mainstream cultural movement,” said Stacie deArmas, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Consumer Engagement, Nielsen. “Nielsen’s new report underscores how content championed by this community is creating measurable value for brands and media buyers looking to reach mass audiences. And once again, shines a light on our unique ability to measure these diverse audiences with meaningful insights.”

“AAANHPI creators and talent are not only reaching global audiences—they are shaping what audiences watch, celebrate, and share,” said Bing Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of Gold House. “These are not just symbols—they’re signals. For brands and media leaders, this represents a clear opportunity to connect through stories and moments that resonate far beyond any one community.”

The report also delved into the impact of sports on Asian-American viewers, finding that in 2025, 91 of the Top 100 broadcast programs for Asian American viewers were sports events.

Nielsen's “The Crossover Effect: AANHPI Audiences X Content” also digs into how Asian and Asian American athletes command broad audiences in high-profile competitive moments, often functioning as audience multipliers in ways that extend well beyond their sport's existing fanbase. Among recent examples noted in the report from the past year include:

• Alysa Liu's gold medal free skate at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics drew 26.7 million viewers on NBC/Peacock, the largest Winter Games weekday audience since 2014. This broke a 20-year U.S. women's figure skating gold medal drought.
• Shohei Ohtani has delivered a consistent version of the same effect across multiple baseball seasons. AANHPI viewership of the 2024 World Series on FOX rose 146% year over year, and Asian viewership of the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series increased 113% compared to the 2024 Seoul Series.
• The 2026 World Baseball Classic featuring teams from Japan, South Korea, and Chinese Taipei, was a turning point for baseball as a global cultural event. For the first time, the tournament averaged over 1.3 million viewers on FOX, FS1, FS2, and FOX Deportes more than double 2023 (621K) and more than triple 2017 (403K).

Additional notable insights in the report include the following:

• K-Pop Demon Hunters on Netflix was the most-streamed original movie of 2025, with 20.5 billion minutes. The movie charted on the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 for 26 consecutive weeks and reached the #1 movie position 10 times following its June premiere. The viewing patterns showed substantial fandom across audience segments including Teens 12-17, Adults 18-34, and Adults 35-49, ending the year as the #1 movie among Hispanic, Asian, Black, and White viewers.
• The numbers for Netflix’s BTS: The Return tell a powerful story of cross-generational and cross-cultural connection, delivering 47 million minutes of viewing in its first seven days. Interestingly, while Gen Z drove a solid 26% of the audience, nearly 60% of viewers were Gen X and Millennials, proving this fandom is a multi-generational powerhouse. Most notably, 73% of the audience was non-Asian, showing that "K-Power" has built a digital bridge that redefines fandom.
• Korean-language titles including Squid Game (Netflix) and Alice in Borderland (Netflix) delivered strong cross-demographic performance throughout 2025. Squid Game ranked #2 in the Asian P2+ Nielsen Top 10 for all of 2025 with 1.6 billion minutes. Alice in Borderland (11.1% Asian audience composition) and Your Majesty (18.5%) both performed well above platform averages for Asian American viewership while delivering the broad audiences that make these titles valuable for brand adjacency. Asian American audiences also help deliver strong viewership for top performers such as Stranger Things #1 (Netflix), Friends #7 (HBO Max), and Resident Alien #8 (Peacock).
• Anime continues to be a major source of high-engagement fandom. The top 10 Anime series in January and February delivered a combined 5.3 Billion minutes viewed. One Piece on Netflix led all anime series in total volume with 1.242 billion minutes in January and February 2026 alone.

The report was developed in collaboration with Gold House, a leading cultural ecosystem advancing AANHPI creators and companies across entertainment, media, and business, combining Nielsen’s measurement with deep cultural insight into the forces driving global fandom and engagement.

More information on The Crossover Effect: AANHPI Audiences X Content can be found at Nielsen.com.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has released data from its co-viewing pilot for February’s top live televised events that shows an average +4.19% lift in total viewers.

The data covered the following major live events: the Super Bowl; the opening ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics; the NBA All-Star Game; the Daytona 500; the Olympics closing ceremony and men’s hockey gold medal game; and the State of the Union address.

For the pilot, Nielsen leveraged state-of-the-art wearable devices to more accurately capture shared viewing.

The co-viewing results from the pilot program will not be included in the final and official Big Data + panel ratings for Nielsen clients and, as a result, will not be considered “currency” that advertisers can transact on.

But Nielsen said it plans to have the co-viewing methodology enhancement fully implemented into its suite of media intelligence products, with a goal to incorporate it into “currency” measurement for the 2026-2027 TV season.

“Our co-viewing pilot exemplifies our unwavering commitment to providing the most accurate measurement for our clients during these dynamic times of change,” Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said. “In the past year alone, we’ve made continued enhancements to our ratings to better reflect the power of live TV in reaching massive audiences.”

Nielsen’s co-viewing enhancement layers in panelists using wearable devices inside of the home. Those wearable devices were not previously applied to the co-viewing modeling, as Nielsen has been introducing more high-tech wearables into its panel.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has introduced Predictive Sales Lift, a new feature that helps marketers and agencies gain better insights into media campaign outcomes.

Nielsen said it is introducing this new capability to address marketers’ needs for a holistic view of campaign outcomes in a fragmented media landscape.

Available for current Nielsen One Ads customers, the new offering predicts sales lift and incremental revenue for a given Nielsen One Ads campaign. It utilizes key campaign measurement performance indicators (such as reach, impression count, distribution of impressions across platforms) and brand characteristics (such as category, brand size and the purchase frequency the campaign is targeting) to deliver these predictions.

Predictive Sales Lift utilizes sales lift results from hundreds of historical Nielsen One Ads campaigns as the basis for its analysis and predictions, Nielsen explained. This new feature will be live for general availability in May.

“Predictive Sales Lift is a major outcomes differentiator because it gives our clients a full-funnel view of campaign performance, underpinned by our Nielsen One measurement foundation, expertise and insights,” said Nichole Henderson, senior vice president of Global Measurement & Outcomes Product, Nielsen. “The industry is headed towards an outcomes-driven future and this is the latest proof point of how we continue to deliver for our clients and the industry on this front.”

Predictive Sales Lift can be applied to media types spanning digital and CTV.

Industry verticals that may find this solution to be especially useful include retail, financial services, technology, telecommunications, travel and tourism, media and entertainment and healthcare and pharmaceuticals, Nielsen said.

This solution is presently available only in the U.S.

NEW YORK—Nielsen and the local TV advertising platform Locality have announced the integration of Nielsen’s Media Data Engine (MDE) into Locality’s broadcast advertising infrastructure.

The partnership accelerates demographic audience delivery and modernizes local television measurement in the U.S., the two companies reported.

With the Integration, Locality becomes the first broadcast sales organization to implement Nielsen’s MDE offering at scale, enabling demographic audience delivery across all U.S. local markets to within four days of airing. Previously, this process took weeks.

The integration will also bring greater speed, consistency, and predictive capabilities to local broadcast campaigns.

“This partnership marks a major step forward for local broadcast,” said Ann Hailer, president of Broadcast at Locality. “For decades, local television has operated on delayed reporting cycles that limited agility and optimization. By integrating Nielsen’s Media Data Engine directly into our infrastructure, we are accelerating access to trusted audience insights and enabling advertisers and stations to make faster, more informed decisions across local markets.”

Nielsen’s MDE is a next-generation data infrastructure designed to improve the timeliness and scalability of measurement. Through this integration, Locality gains streamlined access to Nielsen Local TV data across all 210 local markets, enabling more responsive campaign planning, in-flight optimization, and performance monitoring.

“Local advertisers and broadcasters need the same level of speed and insight that has transformed national and digital media,” said Paul LeFort, managing director of Nielsen’s Local TV Client Services. “Our Media Data Engine was built to power the future of audience measurement and only Nielsen can reliably measure different demographics, including at the local level. By teaming up with Locality, we are introducing a new level of sophistication, innovation and possibilities for the entire local ad ecosystem.”

The integration reflects a broader shift toward converged planning and more dynamic campaign management. By speeding up access to demographic audience insights, Locality and Nielsen are enabling local broadcast to operate with greater transparency, comparability, and responsiveness across markets.

The partnership also lays the groundwork for future innovation, including predictive analytics, AI-driven modeling, and more advanced audience-based applications in linear television.

“This partnership is about building the infrastructure for the next generation of local advertising,” said Michael Collins, CEO of Locality. “Together with Nielsen, we are redefining what’s possible for local media, bringing broadcast measurement into a more modern, intelligent era.”

The integration is now live across all local markets.

NEW YORK—NBCU-Versant unseated YouTube as the top media distributor in February with a 13.1% share of TV viewing, beating out YouTube, which had 12.7% share. YouTube has held the top spot for many months in Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge.

Nielsen combined NBCU and Versant even though Versant was spun off in early January.

The much delayed Nielsen’s The Gauge was also released, showing that broadcast garnered 21.7% of TV viewing, beating out cable, which fell to 20%. Streaming held a 48% share of TV viewing.

Nielsen reported that Super Bowl LX and the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics generated impressive cross-platform audience engagement and helped curb seasonal viewing declines, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge and Media Distributor Gauge reports. NBCU-Versant was up 48% month-over-month to represent 13.1% of total television usage in February (+4.6 pts.), its best share of TV since the Paris Olympics in August 2024 (13.4%).

NBC’s presentation of the Super Bowl delivered February’s largest TV audience with over 125 million viewers. The game also provided helped kickoff NBC’s slate of extensive Winter Olympics coverage, which comprised 71 telecasts that helped provide a 60% overall bump for NBC affiliates in February, Nielsen reported.

Peacock exhibited a 64% monthly uptick in viewing in February and recorded its highest share of television to date in The Gauge, achieving a 3.0% share of TV viewing.

Nielsen's researchers noted that Peacock’s simulcast of the Big Game represented over 20% of the total Super Bowl audience and helped drive the platform’s most-watched day ever on February 8. Viewers who watched the Super Bowl on Peacock were considerably younger compared to the average age of the total audience, with 73% of viewers under age 50 versus 54% overall.

Peacock also got a boost from its new original series "The ‘Burbs", which was released in full on Super Bowl Sunday. The time-tested strategy of a post-Super Bowl release worked to power the series to the highest average audience among streaming originals in February, and second-highest in minutes viewed. Additionally, Episode 1 of The ‘Burbs was notably the most-watched episode of the month across all original titles.

On the cable side, USA Network registered a 234% viewing increase in February due to its extensive Olympics coverage. An active news cycle drove a 4.4% increase in cable news viewing this month, with MSNOW notching a 7% uptick which contributed a full share point to the NBCU-Versant total.

In another notable trend highlighted by Nielsen, Tubi was up 4.1%. It was the only other streamer to record a month-over-month viewing increase in addition to Peacock. Tubi added a tenth of a share point to finish at 2.2% of TV. The Grammys on CBS was the most-watched telecast in February that aired outside of Super Bowl Sunday. Meanwhile, sports coverage had the opposite effect on other media distributors due to the lack of NFL and college football playoffs on ABC/ESPN, CBS and FOX compared to last month.

The February 2026 interval spanned four weeks, from 01/26/2026 through 02/22/2026. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

Nielsen released the February data later than usual with a note stressing that The Gauge and Media Distributor Gauge (MDG) do not reflect Nielsen's currency TV ratings that inform advertising sales.

The Gauge and MDG reflect total TV viewing, which includes both ad-supported and non-ad-supported viewing. Nielsen made enhancements to its currency ratings for advertising in February 2026, with impact data provided to clients and the industry in advance. Nielsen is working on updates to The Gauge and MDG reports to better reflect and include currency enhancements for the Fall TV season, at which time Nielsen will provide additional back data to clients to assist in the transition.

NEW YORK—TelevisaUnivision has concluded a new, multi-year measurement and data agreement with Nielsen covering all of TelevisaUnivision’s properties, including its national and local broadcast, cable, streaming, radio operations.

“Measurement continues to evolve, and it is critical that it accurately reflects the scale, value, and influence of Hispanic audiences across platforms. We are pleased to continue working with Nielsen to support cross-platform measurement and to help ensure that brands and agencies can fully understand the audiences we reach every day,” said Tim Natividad, president of U.S. Advertising Sales and Marketing at TelevisaUnivision.

Services for the deal include Advanced Audiences, Ad-Supported Streaming Platform Ratings, Nielsen ONE Ads for Connected Television, and National out-of-home expansion.

TelevisaUnivision is home to the industry’s leading Spanish-language properties, including its flagship U.S. networks Univision, UNIMÁS, and TUDN, ViX, the world’s largest Spanish-language streaming service, and local affiliates across the country.

The new partnership follows several viewership milestones for TelevisaUnivision in early 2026, including Univision’s lead as the most-watched Spanish-language network in the U.S., N+ Univision programming leading February as the most-watched Spanish-language news; Premio Lo Nuestro ranking as the most-watched awards show among U.S. Hispanics for 34 consecutive years; and record-breaking audiences for soccer coverage across platforms.

NEW YORK—A+E Global Media and Nielsen have announced a new, multiyear deal for measurement, media intelligence and analytics.

The deal includes measurement and media intelligence for A+E Global Media linear and digital brands, including A&E, Lifetime, The History Channel, LMN, and other assets.

As part of the agreement, Nielsen will provide A+E Global Media with linear and digital ratings, and information to help develop advertising, programming, and licensing strategies.

As part of the renewal, A+E Global Media will license new Nielsen services, including Nielsen National Respondent Level Data (NRLD), Nielsen Audience Builder (NAB) and the Data-Driven Linear API (DDL API). This builds on existing services for A+E Global Media, including Nielsen’s Streaming Content Ratings, Streaming Platform Ratings and Ad Intel.

NEW YORK—The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and 4As advertising industry group has released findings from a new joint study examining how major U.S. advertisers evaluate and prioritize media measurement across today’s increasingly complex TV and video ecosystem.

Authored by Sarah Mansfield, Alice Sylvester and Leslie Wood, the study finds that while advertisers have unprecedented access to sophisticated data, analytics and measurement tools, confidence has not advanced at the same pace.

The study, which was co-sponsored by Kochava, Nielsen, and TechEdge, said the biggest challenge facing advertisers is not a lack of data or data integrity, but the complexity of reconciling multiple systems, methodologies and competing “versions of the truth” across an increasingly fragmented ecosystem.

That complex ecosystem includes different platform-specific metrics, incompatible identity systems and differing approaches that are compounded by a vast quantity of data sources.

As a result, advertisers still struggle to clearly explain, defend or unify results with full confidence.

“The industry has built extraordinary measurement capabilities, but advertiser confidence depends on how well those systems work together,” said Jon Watts, managing director, CIMM. “Advertisers are navigating real challenges around comparability and identity in an increasingly fragmented environment. Encouragingly, they don’t see those barriers as insurmountable. They’re not looking for a single source of truth, but clarity about how different truths relate. The opportunity now is alignment: shared definitions, greater transparency and interoperable systems that make measurement more actionable and trustworthy.”

“To drive real performance, we need more than just innovation–we need accountability,” said Ashwini Karandikar, 4As executive vice president of media, technology, and data. “​Agencies and their advertiser clients are pushing for a future-ready infrastructure where definitions are unified and methodologies are transparent. By pairing next-gen tools like AI with stronger industry guardrails, we ensure that every dollar is measurable, every assumption is verifiable, and every campaign is optimized against a reconciled, holistic view of the market.”

Based on a quantitative survey of 197 senior marketers and 16 in-depth executive interviews, the research explores how advertisers prioritize seven major measurement domains – Media Delivery, Media Verification, Audience Delivery, Attention Metrics, Brand Impact, Media Performance and Attribution Metrics – where confidence breaks down, and how expectations will evolve over time. Across all categories, 39% of advertisers ranked Media Performance (encompassing metrics such as CTR, CPA and ROAS) as the single most important domain today.

However, the study shows a growing focus on other measurement categories as well as performance. Advertisers expect Verification, Attention, Audience Delivery, and Brand Impact to grow significantly in importance over the next three to five years, even as confidence in these areas remains uneven due to limited standardization and lack of interoperability.

Cross-platform measurement and transparency around methodologies are seen as the two largest barriers to effective measurement over the next three to five years, with 43% of advertisers rating each as a major or severe barrier. A full 84% of advertisers foresee the impact of AI on measurement as the most consequential, far more than other potential technology advancements, speaking to the desire for faster interpretation, supplements to panel-based research and relief from the burden of reconciling disparate data sources.

Further, the study outlines four priorities to strengthen advertiser confidence:

• Stronger governance through shared definitions and standards
• Greater transparency into methodologies and modeling assumptions
• Innovation paired with guardrails that support trust and usability
• Investment in interoperable, future-ready infrastructure

To download an executive summary, visit: The Paradox of Plenty: Advertisers’ Perspectives on the State of Measurement. The full report, with the entire set of data survey results, will be made available exclusively to members of CIMM and 4As.

NEW YORK—The Media Ratings Council, which accredits audience measurement services, has issued a statement flagging potential problems with Nielsen’s National Big Data + Panel Television measurement service. The group also described how it is working with Nielsen to resolve those problems, which resulted in notable declines in viewing among people aged 25-54 in the first half of 2025.

During the first half of 2025, MRC said that it became aware, through various sources, including its own ongoing audit-related work, “of seemingly unusual changes in measurement results from the Service; for example, decreases in audiences for certain demographics (e.g., total day impressions for persons 25-54 years old declined by more than 10% on average during the first half of 2025, as compared to the first half of 2024).”

It also flagged “issues with representation levels in Nielsen’s panel (household viewing technology as well as demographic characteristics), as well as changes in the general variability associated with reported audience estimates and between audience estimates originating from Panel only vs. Big Data + Panel measurements.”

Nielsen’s National Big Data + Panel Television measurement service has been accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) since January 2025 and remains accredited.

The MRC noted that the service involves a "complex set of measurement processes that rely on several data sources such as Return Path Data from set-top boxes, Automated Content Recognition Data from certain smart television brands, Streaming Data (both from the Nielsen National audience measurement panel for general streaming activity and integrations with 3rd party sources for certain live sports events) and Nielsen’s National television audience measurement panel distributed across the United States."

The Nielsen service also relies on certain machine learning algorithms and techniques (i.e., “modeling”) to derive audience estimates, including certain procedures to predict demographic information associated with non-panel sourced tuning information.

To maintain that accreditation, the MRC said that it had “identified four priority areas that we believed required Nielsen’s actions to help address the issues: 1) Implementation of an independent media-related universe estimate source, 2) Changes to Nielsen’s modeling processes to increase demographic assignment accuracy, 3) Changes to Nielsen’s weighting process to help simplify the overall process and reduce standard error levels in reporting, and 4) Improving underrepresented demographic segments in Nielsen’s panel (e.g., Hispanic, Spanish Dominant).”

“In September 2025, MRC informed Nielsen that improvements on these four matters was necessary to maintain accreditation of the Service,” the group said.

Since that time, Nielsen has conducted and shared research as well as proposed several solutions to address these areas, the MRC reported.

In February 2026, Nielsen implemented the ARF DASH study as a source of media-related universe estimates. It should also be noted that the ARF DASH study was granted MRC accreditation in early 2026 after successfully completing a separate MRC audit process.

The MRC also said that in terms of underrepresented demographic segments, Nielsen made notable progress in quarters three and four 2025 and into January 2026, and has expressed a commitment to continue focusing on balancing demographic representation since we believe further work is needed in this area.

In addition, the MRC reported that adjustments to Nielsen’s modeling and weighting processes are currently planned for implementation in April 2026.

“At present, MRC members are awaiting impact data for these changes on a combined basis to better understand the nature of the changes as well as to verify expected reduction in bias and in statistical variability,” the group said. “Impact data is currently being delivered by Nielsen in phases to enable our evaluation and provide notice of impacts to the marketplace.”

The MRC also stressed that “we understand and we regret that these changes will be disruptive to business processes of the marketplace; we are encouraged that Nielsen is actively working to address the priority areas for improvement that have arisen in their Big Data + Panel measurement. We will continue to evaluate the estimated impacts of these planned methodological changes, with urgency, as they are important to Nielsen’s current accreditation of the commerce significant National service, which continues to be under evaluation at this time. Should the expected timing be modified or delayed, MRC will determine next steps on how to proceed.”

Nielsen has released a list of the most popular college basketball teams, with Duke and Michigan state topping the men's rankings and South Carolina and Iowa ranking number 1 and 2 in the women's rankings.

The Top 10 ranking from the beginning of the season through February 25 showcases the teams with the highest viewership thus far this season across CBS, CW, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, NBC, USA, TruTV, TNT, and USA Network for the men and ABC, CW, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, ION, NBC, TruTV, TNT, and USA Network for the women.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has introduced more than 200 new advanced audiences segments in a move designed to help marketers move beyond traditional audience demos. The new segments are available immediately via the company’s cross-media planning and measurement solution, Nielsen ONE.

The new segments, which draw on Nielsen’s consumer insights solutions arm, Scarborough, cover many of today’s key advertising categories, such as automotive, retail, lifestyle, political and even media habits (consumers of local news, heavy radio listeners, heavy social media users, and more).

Nielsen reported that this expansion is a strategic response to the industry’s urgent demand for addressability and interoperability at scale.

Pairing Scarborough’s national consumer dataset with Nielsen ONE’s cross-media insights creates a marketing intelligence platform that gives clients everything they need to understand their audience in one place. Streamlining this process helps facilitate a more efficient ad marketplace by ensuring that media spend is optimized from the initial strategy through to final impact, significantly reducing waste and driving higher ROI.

Looking forward, Nielsen also said that it plans to build on that momentum by launching hundreds of additional advanced audiences segments in the coming months to further expand on this existing library.

“For decades, Scarborough has been the gold standard for deep consumer and market insights. We’ve combined Scarborough’s trusted consumer data with Nielsen ONE to meet the demands of a modern, outcomes-driven industry. This integration gives marketers the specific insights they need to reach the right people and accurately measure their campaign’s success,” said Ellie Pryor, vice president, global audiences & identity, Nielsen. “The end result is a solution that provides marketers with actionable insights to inform their campaign planning and measurement.”

NEW YORK—While YouTube continues to attract the largest share of TV viewing, January 2026 data shows that Disney captured the largest month-over-month gain in Nielsen’s January 2026 Media Distributor Gauge report, a monthly view of total TV consumption aggregated by parent company.

The report also noted that in January television viewing reached a 12-month high, Disney added 1.2 share points and finished with 11.9% of total television viewing in January, nearly tying its Media Distributor Gauge best (12.0% in January 2025), and bringing it within 0.6 share points of YouTube’s 12.5% lead.

Disney’s momentum was primarily fueled by ESPN’s coverage of the College Football Playoffs and Championship games, which drove an 82% monthly viewing increase on the network and contributed nearly a full share point to Disney’s total.

Disney also got a boost from its ABC affiliates, with viewing up 10% among them on the strength of multiple NFL games, the Citrus Bowl, the return of broadcast dramas, and seasonal staples like "New Year’s Rockin’ Eve" and "The Rose Bowl Parade". ABC’s "High Potential" and "ABC World News Tonight" were notably the top broadcast programs in each of their respective genres in January.

Netflix represented 8.8% of TV usage in January and maintained the No. 3 rank among distributors. Netflix’s overall usage was up slightly in January (+1%), and its original series "Stranger Things" claimed the top streaming program for a second consecutive month.

NFL games carried on NBC, plus simulcasts on Peacock, were a key factor in the 5% overall increase to NBCU-Versant this month. Peacock also benefited from a new season of its original series "The Traitors". Additionally, Telemundo affiliates saw a 13% jump in viewership powered by the sports reality hit "Exatlón", bringing the network’s monthly share contribution to 0.7 points. Overall, NBCU-Versant represented 8.5% of TV viewership in January (+0.3 points vs. December).

Fox climbed to 7.4% of TV viewership in January (+0.4 share points). This growth was largely underpinned by a 17% jump in viewing on Fox News Channel, which accounted for more than half (+0.25 share points) of Fox’s monthly share increase.

Led by increases on FYI (+46%) and Lifetime (+14%), A&E’s combined viewership climbed 8% in January (+0.1 share point) and moved up one slot in the distributor rankings.

Nielsen noted that while Versant formally completed its spin-off of NBCUniversal cable networks in early January, advertising sales for both entities have been retained by NBCU. For this reason, and to preserve data trends and insights in these reports, Nielsen said that NBCU and Versant will be reported together in the Media Distributor Gauge. However, to further acknowledge the change, the companies’ respective shares will be included in the Media Distributor Gauge chart.

The January 2026 interval spanned four weeks, from 12/29/2025 through 01/25/2026. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has released revised Super Bowl LX viewership data, with the total rising to 125.6 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital and NFL+ on Sunday, February 8, according to Big Data + Panel measurement.

Nielsen said that the update was due to the fact that an unnamed "big data provider" did not properly collect data from its devices on February 8, which impacted the Big Data + Panel count.

The telecast on NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital and NFL+ drew a combined average household rating of 39.7.

Nielsen initially reported 124.9 million average viewers. It did not report updates to the peak viewing numbers it initially released.

Updated data was provided after initial ratings were made public on February 10. Additional ratings updates from February 8 are also now available to Nielsen clients.

In 2023, Nielsen also updated its viewing figures for the Super Bowl. Fox revised viewing figures from 113 million to 115.1 million total viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming after it discovered that Nielsen had made encoding errors.

NEW YORK—Television viewing climbed to a 12-month high in January 2026, according to Nielsen’s latest report of The Gauge as overall viewing was up 3.7% over December. That was fueled by a 9% monthly increase in cable viewership, in combination with high-stakes sports, returning broadcast dramas and colder winter temperatures that kept audiences indoors.

Cable captured the largest monthly viewing increase across The Gauge in January and represented 21.2% of total TV (+1.0 share point of total viewing).

Cable sports viewing surged 49% over December, propelled by ESPN’s coverage of the College Football Playoffs, which included the quarterfinals, semifinals and championship games. ESPN alone saw an 82% monthly viewing uptick. Meanwhile, cable news benefited from an active news cycle in January and rose 13% versus December, largely driven by a 17% viewership gain for Fox News Channel, plus a 29% gain for CNN. Notably, ESPN and Fox News Channel each represented 2.2% of total TV usage in January, and together, the two networks comprised 21% of this month’s cable viewing.

Sports remained the anchor for broadcast viewership in January as football continued to dominate the category. NFL games accounted for the top 15 broadcast telecasts, and the sports genre represented the largest share of the category’s viewership (30%).

Broadcast dramas were also on the rise (up 24% vs. December), and "High Potential" on ABC emerged as the most-watched drama program of the month. Similar to cable, the busy news cycle boosted broadcast news viewing by 10% compared to last month, led by "ABC World News Tonight". Overall, broadcast viewership was up 4.2% versus December and represented 21.5% of TV.

Following record viewing levels in December, streaming proved its resilience in January, Nielsen reported. Time spent streaming increased 2.7% month-over-month and the category continued to represent the lion’s share of TV usage with 47.0%.

Highlights from the audience data for streaming include:

• Netflix mirrored the resilience of streaming following its best monthly performance to date. The platform achieved a steady 1% viewing increase (8.8% of TV) versus December, and owned the top streaming program for a second consecutive month, as Stranger Things tallied 15.4 billion viewing minutes in January.
• Peacock viewership was up 10% in January, bringing the streamer to 1.8% of TV. Peacock’s monthly uptick was driven primarily by the new season of its original series The Traitors, and by audiences watching simulcasts of NFL games carried on NBC. This cross-platform amplification was most noticeable on Sunday, January 18 during NBC’s broadcast of the NFL Divisional Playoff matchup between the L.A. Rams and Chicago Bears, which fueled a 78% boost in viewership over its monthly average.
• Across the free ad-supported streaming platforms, Tubi and The Roku Channel each claimed monthly increases. Tubi was up 6% versus December to notch 2.1% of TV, and Roku Channel increased 5% to maintain its platform-best 3.0% share of TV for a second consecutive month.

The January 2026 interval spanned four weeks, from 12/29/2025 through 01/25/2026. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

NEW YORK—Ad-supported television represented 74.2% of overall TV viewing in the fourth quarter 2025, according to Nielsen’s newly released Q4 Ad Supported Gauge, hitting a peak for the viewing share of ad-supported content in 2025.

Compared to Q3 2025, ad supported viewing was up 9%, outpacing the 7% increase in total TV viewing, as football and young adults helped drive upticks.

Audiences spent 45.6% of their ad supported viewing time with streaming, 29.6% with broadcast, and 24.8% with cable. Broadcast experienced the largest quarterly jump of any ad supported viewing category throughout all of 2025 in Q4, capturing a 22% increase and adding 3.2 share points. Football was a major driver for broadcast, as sports viewing surged by 135%, almost doubling its Q3 share of the category to 34% .

Overall, the ad supported broadcast category saw its biggest increase among 25-34 year olds (up 41%), but the key demographic groups of 18-49 and 25-54 also saw increases of 31% and 29%, respectively.

Now in its fourth edition, Nielsen’s Ad Supported Gauge, an extension of The Gauge™, provides the industry with the broadest view of the portion of television that delivers advertising across broadcast, cable and streaming. These new insights provide advertisers and agencies with an essential, up-to-date view of opportunities to connect with consumers across ad-supported platforms.

NEW YORK—Nielsen will launch a pilot program leveraging a new methodology enhancement to account more accurately for co-viewing, beginning Feb. 8 with Super Bowl LX on NBC.

The program, which will continue for high-profile sports and entertainment live events in the first half of the year, will better reflect total viewership for programming, especially live events.

The initial results from the pilot program will be released a few weeks after the delivery of Nielsen final Big Data + Panel ratings.

“Nielsen’s mission is to constantly push measurement forward and deliver the most accurate data ever. This co-viewing pilot builds on that mission, alongside our recent enhancements with Big Data + Panel, out of home expansion, live streaming measurement and our wearable devices,” said Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao. “Our clients produce live TV events that get the world watching. It’s our job to make sure we are accurately counting the audiences they meticulously build.”

The new pilot methodology for co-viewing better incorporates the use of Nielsen’s proprietary wearable measurement devices. These are worn on the wrists of Nielsen panelists and resemble a smart watch. The wearables capture audio from TV events, shows and movies, allowing for more passive measurement that does not require a formal log in process.

Co-viewing estimates from the pilot program will not be immediately included in Big Data + Panel ratings from Nielsen. As such, they will not be considered “currency” that advertisers transact on, but the pilot data will be made available to Nielsen clients following the delivery of Big Data + Panel ratings.

Nielsen clients will be able to share those findings publicly. Nielsen will provide additional impact data to clients later in the year before the co-viewing methodology is fully implemented into its suite of marketing intelligence products. It has the goal of incorporating the additional data in “currency” measurement for the 2026/2027 season, Nielsen said.

The co-viewing enhancement is the first phase with additional co-viewing enhancements planned beyond 2026.

More information is available on the Nielsen website.

NEW YORK—A new study from Nielsen reveals that nearly two thirds of Black audiences (67%) surveyed pay more attention to ads in media that reflect their culture and that more than half (52%) agreed they’re more likely to purchase when a brand partners with creators connected to their interests were compared. That is a higher level of support than the 45% figure for all audiences.

“Our new report clearly defines that authentic representation has an increasingly impactful influence on attention and purchase behaviors,” said Charlene Polite Corley, vice president, Inclusive Insights, Nielsen. “It’s more than just simply checking a box. It’s about actively engaging with Black audiences, reflecting their interests and culture in an effort to build a stronger business for brands.”

The report, which covers a wide range of topics relating to, media habits and the cultural and economic impact of Black consumers, noted that in 2026, Black buying power is projected to top $2 trillion, according to Selig Center for Economic Growth projections.

That makes the impact of Black culture particularly important for advertisers and companies attempting to grow their business, the researchers said. Most members of the Black community in the advertiser-coveted 18-34 demographic (74%) agree with the statement “I wish I saw more representation of my identity group when I consume content.” That number ticks up to 79% when measuring the Black LGBTQ+ audience. In fact, 7 in 10 (70%) of Black consumers will stop buying from brands perceived as devaluing their community.

Nielsen’s new report underscores the fact that representation in both content and in ads acts as a beacon for Black engagement, affinity and purchase.

As an example, 60% of Black consumers expect the retailers they buy from to support the causes they care about while 56% prefer to buy brands that advertise on programs that reflect their culture. Also of note, 57% of Black consumers agree if a company mistreats employees, they will no longer use them, the study found.

Other key findings include:

• The overwhelming majority (71%) of Black consumers feel misrepresented in the media, playing a significant factor in their content choices.
• There is also a strong opportunity to reach Black audiences on TV and streaming, as new Nielsen data shows: Black 18-49 year olds average nearly seven and a half hours more per week with Connected TV than their counterparts of the same age group.
• Black audiences are 13% of the TV population but drive nearly a third of FAST engagement at 31% audience share.
• Black viewers were the most likely to want to watch events live as they air or become available on streaming services.

The “The Black Influence: How Black Culture & Identity Drive the Market” marks the 15th year Nielsen has released its Diverse Intelligence Series reports.

The full report is available here.

NEW YORK—New data shows that streaming viewership captured 47.5% of television in December 2025, eclipsing its previous record set in July 2025 to achieve the largest share of TV ever reported in Nielsen’s The Gauge, a snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption.

The Gauge also reported that Christmas Day set records for streaming usage with 55.1 billion viewing minutes, shattering the previous single-day streaming record by 8% (12/25/2024, 51.2 billion minutes), and marking just the second time in TV history where daily streaming volume exceeded 50 billion minutes.

The huge day of streaming viewership was driven by back-to-back NFL games on Netflix, strategically followed by the highly anticipated release of new "Stranger Things" episodes, in addition to Prime Video’s late NFL game. Combined, Netflix and Prime Video commanded 22.5% of total TV usage across the day, Nielsen reported.

Meanwhile, streaming levels overall on Christmas Day swelled to an unprecedented 54% of daily TV usage, the largest single-day share of TV ever recorded by the category, Nielsen reported.

Streaming’s dominance in December was further evidenced by the fact that the category exceeded 50% of daily TV usage twice, having occurred for the first time ever on Saturday, December 13 when streaming represented 50.4% of TV.

Overall streaming usage was up 3% in December versus November, doubling the monthly increase of total TV usage. Four streaming platforms achieved personal bests this month, including:

• Netflix, 9.0% of TV: Netflix viewership was up 10% month-over-month, with increases largely driven by Stranger Things, which generated over 15 billion viewing minutes and was December’s most-watched streaming title.
• Prime Video, 4.3% of TV: Prime Video surged 12% versus last month and exceeded its previous platform record by 0.3 share points. Prime Video’s increases were driven by four NFL Thursday Night Football games, including a record-setting Christmas Day game, as well as new episodes of its original series Fallout.
• The Roku Channel, 3.0% of TV: The free ad-supported streamer added 0.1 share point from November to secure an all-time monthly high.
• Paramount Streaming, 2.5% of TV: Led by the 6.2 billion viewing minutes generated by its original series "Landman" on Paramount+ (December’s No. 2 most-watched streaming title), Paramount Streaming was up 10% versus November to hit a collective 2.5% share of TV (Paramount+ and Pluto).

Across traditional TV, broadcast viewership represented 21.4% of total TV watch-time in December, while cable accounted for 20.2%. CBS and FOX secured the top broadcast programs in December, led by Fox’s Eagles vs. Bills NFL matchup on December 28, followed by the Steelers vs. Lions on CBS on December 21. CBS also owned the top non-sports programs of the month with Tracker and 60 Minutes, each capturing over 10 million viewers (L+7) and the largest non-sports program audiences.

Cable sports programming experienced a 16% viewing lift in December to represent 9% of total cable viewing. NFL games represented the top five cable telecasts this month, led by all four of the December interval’s Monday Night Football games on ESPN, followed by the NFL Network’s coverage of the Texans vs. Chargers matchup on December 27.

The December 2025 interval spanned five weeks, from 12/01/2025 through 12/28/2025. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

NEW YORK—Nielsen and Roku said they are expanding their strategic partnership with the audience measurement provider incorporating Roku data into its advanced campaign measurement and outcome solutions.

Streaming on Roku devices alone makes up more than 21% of all TV viewing, according to October 2025 Nielsen TV Ratings. With Roku’s viewing data, advertisers can get a more accurate perspective on what audiences are watching across services, Nielsen said.

As part of the expanded multi-year strategic partnership, Nielsen will continue using Roku’s large-scale TV data as input to its Big Data + Panel measurement for both linear and streaming ratings. This will help deliver more accurate performance results for advertisers running campaigns on Roku and across the broader TV landscape, it said.

“With our leadership in streaming measurement and this data from Roku, we are providing the most accurate view of what audiences are watching across all of TV. And at Nielsen, we continue to see a move towards ad-supported streaming services, with The Roku Channel a leader in the category,” said Nielsen general manager of audience measurement Ameneh Atai.

“This strategic partnership brings together Nielsen’s strength and expertise in streaming measurement with Roku’s category leadership positioning to provide a solution that addresses a timely industry need: granular insights and analytics that marketers need to grow their brand as well as drive results.”

The deal also gives Roku access to Nielsen’s Streaming Platform Ratings, which provides a comprehensive view of how audiences engage with both subscription and ad-supported services—insight that will be helpful as The Roku Channel, its free ad-supported streaming app grows.

“Our extended strategic partnership with Nielsen will help further our goal of a better TV advertising system, focused on interoperability and driving performance. Together, Roku and Nielsen will take streaming measurement to a new level, ensuring that advertisers and publishers have access to best-in-class measurement and insights,” said Sarah Harms, vice president of marketing and measurement at Roku.

More information is available on the Nielsen website.

NEW YORK—The power of the NFL to drive TV viewing was on full display in in November, with new data from Nielsen’s monthly snapshot of TV viewing, The Gauge, showing a 5.5% monthly increase in television usage. During the five-week interval covered by the November report, live sports drove broadcast to its best share of TV since last November, while simultaneously fueling double-digit growth for hybrid streamers like Peacock and Paramount+.

Nielsen’s The Gauge reported that Thanksgiving Day is the highlight of November television viewing as audiences watched 103.4 billion minutes of TV across the day.

Overall, linear streaming on Thanksgiving represented 10.1% of total TV usage to achieve the second-highest level of daily linear streaming ever, surpassed only by Super Bowl Sunday in February 2025. By comparison, linear streaming totaled 7.8% of TV usage across the month. Additionally, Thanksgiving was the broadcast category’s 10th-most-watched day since the inception of The Gauge in May 2021.

The month was also very good for broadcast. Broadcast extended its momentum in November, with viewership increasing 7% versus October to capture 23.2% of TV and outpace cable for a third consecutive month. Broadcast gains were driven overwhelmingly by a 30% monthly increase in sports viewing, powered by the back-half of the MLB World Series on FOX, plus NFL and college football on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, the researchers reported.

Even though sports accounted for just 3% of broadcast content by duration, sports commanded 37% of all broadcast viewership in November and 6.4% of total TV usage—the highest share for the genre ever recorded in The Gauge. NFL coverage drew more younger audiences into the broadcast ecosystem as well, with viewing for the under-30 group up 21% this month, and viewing for kids 2-11 up 27%, Nielsen reported.

The sports effect was just as potent in streaming, as multi-platform distributors continued to demonstrate how live sports are fueling a unified viewership ecosystem:

Peacock posted the strongest monthly growth among streaming platforms in November, soaring 22% on the strength of its NFL Sunday Night Football coverage and Thanksgiving Day programming. Peacock’s Thanksgiving featured simulcasts of NBC’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and a primetime NFL game, the platform averaged 2.4 million viewers across the day, trailing only YouTube and Netflix (compared to individual platform totals). Peacock also benefited from new original drama series All Her Fault, which generated 2.4 billion minutes across the month. The overall impact lifted Peacock to a non-Olympic monthly record 1.9% share of television (+0.3 pts.), the researchers wrote.

Paramount+ (within Paramount Streaming) jumped 18.4% month over month, driven by NFL games alongside the return of its original series Landman. These gains lifted the combined Paramount Streaming portfolio to a 2.3% share of television (+0.2 pts.).

In addition to live sports, November also exhibited a striking example of broadcast and streaming convergence, the researchers said.

The Thanksgiving Day NFL matchup between the Chiefs and Cowboys on CBS generated 11.7 billion viewing minutes and was the top broadcast telecast of the month. Meanwhile, Stranger Things on Netflix totaled 11.8 billion viewing minutes across the entire month. Despite being viewed live versus on-demand, the end results were nearly identical as each accounted for more than 22,000 years of cumulative television viewing by U.S. audiences.

Overall, streaming usage grew 8% in November and captured 46.7% of total TV watch-time. This month also featured five of the top ten most-streamed days ever recorded, led by Saturday, November 29, which now ranks second all-time with 47.6 billion minutes streamed, behind the 51 billion minutes clocked on Christmas Day 2024. Most impactful to the overall November streaming landscape, however, was Netflix’s Stranger Things, whose nearly 12 billion viewing minutes propelled Netflix to a 10% monthly increase, adding 0.3 share points to finish with 8.3% of total TV. The Roku Channel also posted a standout performance, rising 9% overall and benefiting from a 23% jump among viewers ages 25–34. The gains lifted the platform to a record 2.9% share of television, Nielsen said.

Meanwhile, cable usage dipped 3% to a 20.5% share, exhibiting its lowest monthly total to date. While NFL games on ESPN remained top performers, the category felt the absence of the MLB playoffs, which caused the cable sports genre to retract by 42%. The category was buoyed slightly by holiday spirit, however, as the cable movie genre saw a 22% increase in viewership.

The November 2025 interval spanned five weeks, from 10/27/2025 through 11/30/2025. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

In its description of the data, Nielsen noted that Linear streaming is defined as live broadcast and cable content viewed through MVPD/vMVPD services like YouTube TV and cable provider apps. Linear streaming is excluded from the streaming category in The Gauge.

NEW YORK—Fueled by football season, ad supported TV viewing in Q3 peaked in September, representing 74.7% of overall TV viewership in that month, per Nielsen’s new Q3 2025 Ad Supported Gauge.

Across the full quarter (06/30/2025 - 09/28/2025), ad supported TV accounted for 72.9% of overall TV viewing, with streaming capturing 46.4% of the ad-supported viewing total, followed by cable (27.2%) and broadcast (26.4%).

The data, Nielsen reported, shows that similar to overall viewing, seasonality can impact the ad supported share of that total. For example, July marked one of the strongest months of the year for streaming consumption due to kids and teens being on summer vacation and a lighter month for ad supported viewing, as streaming offers a wider variety of ad-free options. September, meanwhile, is when the return of live sports – namely football – helps broadcast roar back, increasing the overall share of ad supported viewing, the researchers said.

Those trends were reflected in the data. After peaking in July with 48% of the overall ad supported pie, streaming lost 3.6 share points, representing 44.4% during the September interval, while broadcast gained 4.4 share points, jumping to 29.1% thanks to a strong sports slate. Cable remained fairly consistent over this period.

Another important data point, Nielsen reported was that when looking at adults 18 and over, the ad supported share of TV viewing increases to over three-quarters of television (75.1%) and drops streaming back four share points to 42.4%. These four share points are equally distributed between broadcast and cable, bumping each up by two to 28.4% and 29.2%, respectively.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has announced that its Audience Segments from Nielsen Marketing Cloud (NMC) are now available across the Amazon Ads marketplace, including the Amazon DSP and the data clean room, the Amazon Marketing Cloud.

The launch allows advertisers to seamlessly access Nielsen’s audience segments to target their specific audience, deliver ads across multiple platforms and formats, and measure performance in Amazon’s expansive ecosystem.

The segments are available through Zeotap Data Distribution connection

Nielsen said that NMC’s comprehensive and proprietary Audience Segments provide deep audience targeting and activation capabilities across industries including CPG, auto and finance, and includes demographics, shopping behaviors, and media consumption.

Advertisers and agencies leveraging these segments via the Amazon DSP, through Zeotap Data Distribution, can activate across Amazon DSP’s third-party supply integrations and first-party supply sources, including Prime Video, Freevee, Twitch, Amazon.com, Fire TV, Kindle, and Alexa.

In addition, through Amazon Marketing Cloud, buyers can analyze and collaborate on Nielsen’s high quality data within a secure clean room environment.

“With our audience segments now in Amazon’s industry leading advertising ecosystem platforms, we offer marketers one of the industry’s best data capabilities to help further drive marketing ROI,” said Kirsten Cummings, general manager, outcomes at Nielsen.

“Distributing best-in-class Nielsen audiences on Amazon DSP is yet another step in fulfilling Zeotap Data’s mission of building and distributing the most effective audiences for marketers globally,” said Vishal Tanwar, vice president of partnerships at Zeotap Data.

Nielsen Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive data and technology solution that powers data-driven advertising and provides real-time insight into audiences. The platform enables clients to manage every phase of the marketing process in a single place—from media planning and activation to data management and attribution, Nielsen said.

NEW YORK—Nielsen's Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-side platforms (DSPs) with easy access to Gracenote's standardized program-level metadata. That access facilitates precise program-level ad targeting, better CTV campaign performance and transparent post-campaign reporting, the company said.

Gracenote said that Media buyers can use Gracenote Content Connect in a range of ways to suit their workflows. They can either directly access the platform for "hands-on-keyboard" creation of private marketplace (PMP) and programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals, or they can leverage their partner SSPs or DSPs to create, manage and activate deals on their behalf.

The flexible platform taps Gracenote's proprietary content ID graph made up of standardized program metadata organized in a structured taxonomy and connected by unique identifiers. This ensures both ad buyers and sellers are using a common language in relation to programming, a key necessity when shows are widely available across different ad-supported CTV platforms and services, the company explained.

"Gracenote data is widely recognized as the media industry's gold-standard for powering consumer entertainment search and discovery broadly," said Kanishk Prasad, vice president of product at Gracenote. "By opening up access to content-based signals which enable smarter CTV ad targeting and better campaign performance, we're taking a big step towards giving advertisers transparency, control and maximum scale across all CTV platforms."

Gracenote also reported that the platform provides users with visibility into key content signals such as genre, rating and mood, as they bid on CTV inventory and target messages at the program level. This gives them full control over brand safety and ensures privacy-compliant placements while still delivering the scale needed to meet campaign objectives.

Gracenote will preview the new Content Connect platform on an appointment-only basis at CES running January 6 - 8, 2026.

For more information, visit Gracenote.com.

NEW YORK—NFL and college football coverage, the MLB postseason and the new fall broadcast-TV season contributed to major gains for traditional media companies and a reshuffling of media distributor rankings in October, according to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge.

The top three media companies remained unchanged from September to October. YouTube led with 12.9% of total TV viewing. Disney followed with 11.4% and NBCUniversal with 8.6%. Time spent watching YouTube was up 4% in October (0.3 share points), driven by double-digit growth among kids and teens with many schools closed for various fall breaks.

Disney achieved the largest share increase in October and added 0.7 share points as its overall viewership climbed 7% month-over-month. The media company saw balanced growth across its linear and streaming platforms. ESPN and ABC affiliates each saw a 9% viewing increase, while Disney Streaming (Disney+, Hulu and ESPN Unlimited) contributed a 7% bump. ABC affiliates and Disney Streaming each added 0.3 share points, representing the largest share-growth contributions, it said.

Hallmark Channel posted the largest increase in watch time in October as viewership surged 11% compared to September. Hallmark’s growth was powered by an uptick in movie viewership, which led to a gain of 0.1 point to represent 1.0% of TV this month. Hallmark climbed from 13th to 12th in the distributor rankings, according to the Media Distributor Gauge.

The influence of live sports and linear programming caused movement elsewhere on the chart. Fox and Paramount mirrored Disney’s 7% monthly growth, and each climbed one spot in the distributor rankings, finishing with 8.4% and 8.2% of TV, respectively. Fox was propelled by the MLB playoffs, with significant lifts from FS1 and Fox broadcast affiliates. FS1 recorded a massive 285% viewing bump on the strength of American League Championship Series coverage and contributed 0.4 points to Fox’s 0.5-point increase, and Fox affiliates rose 12% driven by the start of the World Series (Games 1 and 2), college football’s Big Noon Saturday and NFL games on Sundays.

Similar to Disney, Paramount saw increases across both linear and streaming in October, driving its growth. CBS affiliates were up 13%, and Paramount+ was up 8.3%. Although NFL games represented the top three programs for CBS this month, the network also owned the top three nonsports programs across the entire broadcast category with “Tracker,” “60 Minutes” and “Matlock.”

Warner Bros. Discovery also benefited from the MLB playoffs in October, adding 0.2 points month-over-month to capture 5.6% of total TV watch-time. Exclusive coverage of the Dodgers-Brewers four-game National League Championship Series (NLCS) drove a 93% viewing increase on TBS.

The October 2025 interval spanned four weeks, from Sept. 29 through Oct. 26. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

More information is available on the Nielsen website.

NEW YORK—The popularity of NFL games is largely responsible for continued seasonal momentum in TV viewership into October (measured Sept. 29-Oct. 26), according to Nielsen’s The Gauge report, its monthly snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption.

The NFL simultaneously drove a 4.3% increase in broadcast viewing as well as gains for key streaming services, it said.

The impact of NFL coverage in October was most apparent when isolating viewership by day. Sundays exhibited the largest viewing shift across categories for the month, as broadcast averaged a 5.3-point gain to climb from an average of 22% of TV on Monday through Saturday, to 27.3% of TV on Sundays. By contrast, cable and streaming viewership experienced the opposite effect, with the time spent watching up slightly Monday-Saturday and lower on Sundays.

The NFL also drove increases on game days and overall for several streaming services.

Peacock exhibited a 19% monthly viewing uptick in October and represented 1.6% of TV. Its share on Sundays, however, averaged 2.0% of total TV.

Paramount+ viewership was up 8% in total versus last month, and the streamer’s average share of TV increased from 1.2% Monday-Saturday to 1.6% on Sundays, when it simulcasts CBS.

Amazon Prime Video, home of “Thursday Night Football,” gained three points against its monthly average on game days, jumping to 6.4% of TV on Thursdays in October.

Broadcast led all TV categories with a 4.3% monthly viewing gain in October, which resulted in 0.6 additional share points and 22.9% of television—building on its lead over cable and marking its largest share of TV since November 2024 (23.7%).

Despite the performance, broadcast sports viewership was down compared to September (-6.4%) but still accounted for nearly one-third of all broadcast viewing. NFL games on CBS, Fox and NBC claimed the top three overall program rankings with over 20 million viewers apiece (L+7). The fall TV season continued to unfold in October as well, as broadcast drama viewership saw a 28% increase over September led by “Tracker,” “Matlock” and “NCIS” on CBS, “High Potential” on ABC and “Chicago Fire” on NBC, to represent the largest monthly gain within the category.

Streaming viewership was up 2.4% month-over-month, outpacing the increase in overall TV usage (1.3%) to gain a half-point and represent 45.7% of TV watch-time in October. Surging football viewing on key streaming platforms helped to fuel the increase, while most non-NFL streamers saw decreases on game days. Netflix bucked the trend and grew its share of TV on Sundays. Netflix netted out with 7.9% of TV in October, but on Sundays specifically, its share climbed to 8.2% of TV. This was partially on the strength of its original series “Monster: The Ed Gein Story,” which was the most-streamed title of the month with 5.4 billion minutes viewed.

Cable watch-time in October tracked closely with overall usage (+1.2%), but the category’s share of TV slipped by 0.1 due to rounding to finish with 22.2% of total TV. Cable sports viewership increased nearly 50% versus September and represented 14% of the category’s viewing total.

Feature films were a bright spot for cable, exhibiting a 7% monthly increase in October as viewers sought out their favorite spooky movies amid the Halloween season. News continued to lead cable viewing, owning nearly a quarter of the category’s share despite a 3% drop from the preceding month.

More information is available on The Gauge and Nielsen websites.

NEW YORK—Nielsen said it has started releasing rankings of the most-watched college football teams. In its first ranking, through the first 10 weeks of the season, Alabama is on top with 7.910 million viewers, followed by Georgia with 7.626 million viewers.

Nielsen also reported that through 10 weeks, college football viewership is up 4% from last year, comparing Big Data Plus Panel numbers to last year’s Big Data Plus Panel numbers from the same time period.

The Top 10 ranking showcases the teams with the highest viewership thus far this season, across ABC, Big Ten Network, CBS, The CW, the ESPN networks, Fox, FS1, FS2, NBC and TNT.

Those teams were:

The overall popularity of college football was also highlighted in a separate Nielsen ranking of the top 25 live sports events. College football secured 10 of the top 25 slots for live sports for the week of October 27 - November 2.

During that week, the World Series delivered five of the top 11 spots, including the No. 2 and No. 4 ranked telecasts (Fox). Game 7 (ranked No. 2) delivered 26.9 million viewers, the most for a World Series game since 2017.

From Oct. 27 to Nov. 2, NFL football secured seven of the top 14 slots across six different networks/distributors: Fox, NBC, CBS, Prime Video, ABC, and ESPN. The most-watched NFL games aired in the CBS late window. Nearly 31 million viewers tuned in for the Nov. 2 Kansas City Chiefs-Buffalo Bills in the late window, making it the most-watched Week 9 game on CBS since 2007.

In ye olde days of traditional television, when U.S. TV viewing options were limited to ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS, Nielsen’s paper diaries were sufficient for tracking viewership and providing useful audience data to advertisers.

Today, everything has changed. “The television landscape has experienced a massive amount of change over the past several years,” said David Levy, CEO of OpenAP, an advanced advertising company jointly owned by the Big Four commercial broadcast networks and focused on video, TV and cross-platform audience targeting and measurement. “Viewership has bifurcated across screens, with CTV [connected TV] and streaming growing to become as large a viewership channel as linear. Because of that, legacy measurement models fell short of accurately measuring audiences.”

To address these changes, audience measurement firms such as Nielsen, OpenAP and Samba TV are using new models to capture accurate, actionable viewing data. These models are meant to provide advertisers with information that matters as much today as it did in the past: Who is watching what, and what are the best ways to reach them with commercials?

The Hybrid Model
Because today’s viewers watch video in so many different ways, the logical way to measure them accurately is across all of their viewing platforms. This is known as the “hybrid model” of TV audience measurement.

“Hybrid measurement models leverage large-scale device-level datasets (big data) such as Return Path Data (RPD) and Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) to augment the granularity of analyses supported and the accuracy of measurement solutions,” said Sean Breedlove, OpenAP’s vice president of measurement and analytics. “Panel data sources are used to calibrate big datasets, adjusting for biases, filling known gaps in coverage and estimating person-level viewership to ensure that the resultant measurement is representative of the market.”

Nielsen is using the hybrid model today. “Changing consumer habits have led to fragmentation,” said a Nielsen spokesperson. “It’s widely agreed upon that hybrid measurement, like our Big Data + Panel measurement, is the way forward to unlock the most accurate view of what people are watching across platforms. Our Big Data + Panel measurement is based on over 45 million households and 75 million devices (from Comcast, Dish, DirecTV, Roku and Vizio) and validated by our person-level panel of over 100,000 real people and 42,000 homes.”

The Role of AI
Thanks to their ability to process and analyze massive data, AI and machine learning (ML) are playing a crucial role in enhancing the accuracy and speed of TV viewership measurement. The technologies are also adding new kinds of measurement to the mix.

For example, “Samba AI enables the TV itself to detect scenes, objects, brands, interactions and even sentiment of what’s happening onscreen without needing to send data to the cloud,” said Alyson Sprague, Samba TV’s vice president of measurement products. “The result is real-time contextual analysis that powers brand-safe advertising, AI-generated metadata and content-aware experiences, while reinforcing user privacy and ensuring a smooth and uninterrupted viewing experience,” she said.

Nielsen agrees. “AI can help the industry analyze and uncover new patterns and trends and ways of thinking about data,” the spokesperson said. “Nielsen processes petabytes of data and machine learning helps us carry out methodological research, accuracy checks and corrections at a scale never before possible. But AI models are only as good as the data that is used to train them and publishers and marketers should be diligent that the underlying data is a trusted truth set that accounts for gaps, biases and inaccuracies.”

Getting More From Audience Measurement
Modern TV audience measurement is moving beyond the traditional metrics of reach and frequency to focus on the concepts of “advanced audiences” and “outcomes.” As used by Nielsen, advanced audiences provide demographics-based insights into viewers’ purchasing history and their intent to buy specific products; their lifestyle behaviors, attitudes and interests; their economic status (which influences purchasing decisions); and their race/ethnicity identifications.

“The rise in advanced audiences is driven by the need to reach relevant audiences beyond just age and gender,” said the Nielsen spokesperson. “Our advanced audiences are cross-platform and backed by our Big Data + Panel measurement. On the outcomes front, we launched our Outcomes Marketplace, which is aimed at providing a combined view of reach, brand lift and sales lift to help better inform media strategies and show the full-funnel impact of ad campaigns.

“Our initial partner Realeyes gives clients an understanding of creative attention and emotive response to ads, and we will be announcing other major partners soon,” the spokesperson added.

Tangible Results and the Future of Measurement
Taken as a whole, the new audience measurement approaches described above are helping advertisers cope with the explosion of video viewing sources and styles, while providing them with additional options for precisely targeting ads to the most receptive consumers.

“These new approaches enable advertisers and content producers to monitor both the scale of viewership and audience resonance of their ad creatives and content on a more real-time basis, allowing them to make ad creative and media content optimization decisions more fluidly based on in-market consumer response,” Breedlove said. In the future, “TV measurement will become increasingly audience-based, rather than relying on age/gender demographics that have traditionally been leveraged for linear TV transactions.”

“What matters across the board are the outcomes brands are trying to achieve,” Samba TV’s Sprague said. This is where a flexible, innovative approach to TV audience measurement matters, because it empowers advertisers to deliver better results to their sponsors. A case in point: “In a recent study with Amazon Ads, campaigns that combined traditional TV with Amazon Ads drove a 2 times lift in awareness and a 5.4 times lift in purchase intent,” she said. “That is the kind of outcome-focused impact we are working to deliver across industries.”

As TV and streaming media outlets pay record prices for NFL rights, those big bets are paying off with record viewing levels.

In a post on X, the NFL reported that average viewers per game is running at 18.58 million, the highest average through week five since 2010. It is also the second-highest average on record, the league reported.

Those viewing levels through the first give weeks are up 8% compared to 2024 and up 9% from 2023 levels.

More specifically, below are the viewing figures for the top 10 games.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has launched newly redesigned weekly TV ranking reports powered by Big Data Plus Panel metrics and has launched two new ranking reports, including Live Sports Events and Total Scheduled Programming.

The reports cover the first official week of the broadcast season, which began Sept. 22. In the first Live Sports Events report, college football, MLB, NFL, Ryder Cup and WNBA events all made the Top 25.

Nielsen’s Big Data Plus Panel ranking reports now include Broadcast Programs and Network Averages; Cable Programs and Network Averages; Syndication Programs; Sports Events; and Total Scheduled Programming.

The new and updated TV rankers provide streamlined, consistent reporting that better reflects evolving viewing behaviors, Nielsen said. All program-level reports will shift to total-day viewing, and all reports will include these ratings and projections demographics: households, persons 2-plus, persons 18–49 and persons 25–54. Nielsen will also use some of the reports to update the Top 10 lists on its website.

Nielsen is introducing two new ranking reports: Live Sports Events and Total Scheduled Programming. The Live Sports Events report includes the weekly top 25 live sports telecasts across broadcast, cable and live streaming. The Total Scheduled Programming ranking features the top 250 live/scheduled telecasts of the week across broadcast, cable, live streaming and syndication.

Big Data Plus Panel National TV Measurement combines Nielsen’s unique, high-quality representative panel measurement with data from cable, satellite set-top boxes and smart TVs across 45 million households and 75 million devices. Nielsen also incorporates first-party data from participating streaming services.

More information is available on the Nielsen and Big Data Plus Panel websites.

NEW YORK—Warner Bros. Discovery and Nielsen have signed a new, long-term, multi-year deal that covers measurement for all Warner Bros. Discovery platforms across linear and streaming.

As part of the new deal, Warner Bros. Discovery will expand its use of Nielsen’s services. In 2026 it will start using new services that tap into Nielsen’s Advanced Audience capabilities. Warner Bros. Discovery will continue to use Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel as currency for this Upfront and beyond.

“As our industry leading reports show, Warner Bros. Discovery is one of the top media companies in the world, consistently delivering hits for fans across every platform,” said Karthik Rao, Nielsen CEO. “Nielsen is the only company that can deliver measurement for every way that fans watch their shows, across all platforms. From streaming to linear and live to on demand, we give Warner Bros. Discovery the data they need to grow their business. We’re thrilled to extend our partnership so that we can deliver accurate data for Warner Bros. Discovery and our mutual advertising clients.”

“At WBD, our priority is to provide clients the most reliable tools and actionable insights to better reach their audiences and maximize their campaigns’ effectiveness,” said David Porter, head of ad sales data, insights, and research at Warner Bros. Discovery. “As the industry continues to accelerate currency innovation and optionality across the marketplace, Nielsen’s robust measurement capabilities will deliver our partners smarter data and solutions to better capture performance and viewership across all screens, further optimizing the impact of their ad spend and inventory.”

NEW YORK—New data from Nielsen’s The Gauge shows that the dynamics of a new school year and the return of football collided in August signaled by gains for traditional TV viewing of broadcast and cable outlets for the first time since April.

Nielsen’s monthly report of The Gauge, the media industry's leading snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption. Broadcast and cable combined to add a full percentage point in their share of total TV viewing over last month, representing a 19.1% share for broadcast and a 22.5% share for cable. That ended a three month-long decline for traditional TV.

Broadcast notched its largest share of TV since May as viewership climbed 1.1% on a monthly basis. Across the five-week measurement interval, the peak in broadcast viewership occurred during the final week of the month (08/25/25-08/31/25), coinciding with the official return of college football. Fox’s first Big Noon Saturday game of the season between Ohio State and Texas on August 30 drew the largest telecast audience this month with over 16.6 million viewers. ABC owned the next three top telecasts with college football games that each drew over 10 million viewers, including Notre Dame vs. Miami, Alabama vs. Florida State, and LSU vs. Clemson, Nielsen reported.

Cable viewing represented 22.5% of TV watch-time in August, gaining 0.3 share points versus July. Like broadcast, cable viewing was strongest in the final week of the interval, primarily among 18-49 year-olds. This peak was also driven by college football coverage, specifically on ESPN. Moreover, cable sports viewing in August was up 30% compared to the prior month, and represented over 9% of all cable viewership.

Time spent streaming declined over 4% in August compared to July and represented 46.4% of TV (-0.9 percentage points in its viewing share), the researchers at Nielsen explained.

Although monthly viewing levels were down for each streaming platform in The Gauge in August, one streamer managed to gain share: Prime Video added 0.1 point and finished the month with 3.9% of TV.

that was its best performance so far in 2025, and just shy of its platform record (4.0%) set in December 2024. Prime Video benefited from two of its original series, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and “Ballard”, in addition to an NFL preseason game on August 21, Nielsen said.

Netflix accounted for 8.7% of TV watch-time in August (-0.1 point vs. July), and continued to dominate the month’s top streaming programs: Netflix originals Wednesday, “KPop Demon Hunters” and “The Hunting Wives”, plus acquired series “Sullivan’s Crossing”, took the top four slots and combined for over 22 billion viewing minutes across the five weeks of the interval.

Nielsen also noted that coming out of several consecutive streaming-heavy months, there was a decrease in viewing from younger audiences caused by back-to-school variables.

Time spent watching TV was down 2% overall in August versus July, but viewing among kids and teens (age 6-17) was down 9% over the same period. Additionally, when isolating watch-time by week among this age group, viewing levels between the first and last weeks of the interval (07/28/25-08/03/25 vs. 08/25/25-08/31/25) dropped 21%. Streaming usage among school-aged viewers also exhibited similar declines, dropping 8% on a monthly basis in August, and losing 22% from the first week versus the last week of the month.

The August 2025 interval spanned five weeks, from 07/28/2025 through 08/31/2025. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

NEW YORK—A new research study from Nielsen confirms the conclusions from many previous studies that Hispanic consumers are early adopters of digital technologies and are “leading the way when it comes to consumption of streaming content,” the audience measurement firm said.

The new data from Nielsen shows streaming drives 55.8% of total TV time for Hispanic viewers, surpassing the 46% for the rest of the U.S. Furthermore, Hispanic audiences outpaced general U.S. viewership of streaming services YouTube, Netflix and Disney+, that same report found.

Even though Hispanics are avid consumers of digital media, the study also found, less than 1% of digital ad spend from U.S. online retailers went to Spanish-language websites in Q1, exposing a major investment gap.

Coinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month, the new “Curating The Narrative: How Hispanic Viewers Are Creating Their Media Experiences” report, takes a deep dive look at the media consumption and viewership habits of an important demographic that accounts for nearly 20% of the U.S. population and more than $4.1 trillion in purchasing power.

“Brands that want to succeed in this environment must understand that Hispanic audiences are not waiting to be represented. They are building their own platforms, amplifying their culture, and demanding authenticity," said Stacie de Armas, senior vice president, inclusive insights at Nielsen. "Marketers must engage Hispanics authentically to take advantage of one of the most powerful and influential audiences in America today."

Other key findings in such areas as media consumption, viewing habits, digital media and sports include:

• Looking at total time spent with TV, streaming now drives 55.8% of total TV time for Hispanic audiences, outpacing the general U.S. population (46%).
• Despite the shift to streaming, broadcast and cable remain a cultural touchpoint for Hispanic audiences, driven more by storytelling, shared experiences and variety shows. General drama made up the largest share of Hispanics' time with broadcast programming, and 18% of all Hispanics' time spent with broadcast was spent with sports or sports-adjacent content.
• But it’s genres like variety shows and conversational programming that stand out uniquely strong for Hispanic viewers totaling nearly 20%. This signals a preference for emotionally resonant, family-oriented, and interactive formats, whether it's “Casa de Famosos,” “Juego de Voces” or even “American Idol.”
• Radio and podcasts account for 79% of all daily audio time with ad-supported platforms, with 62% of Hispanic podcast listeners more likely to call a number from a podcast ad than the general population.
• 56% of Hispanics wish they saw more representation while scrolling social feeds (63% among Spanish speakers).
• They are 115% more likely to use CapCut, 80% more likely to use Linktree, and 29% more likely to use AI platforms like ChatGPT than the general population.
• Despite this engagement, less than 1% of digital ad spend from U.S. online retailers went to Spanish-language websites in Q1 2025, exposing a major investment gap.
• Nearly 96% of the Spanish-language online spend allocation was directed via YouTube, a platform that accounts for nearly 21% of Spanish-speaking audiences' TV time.
• Hispanics are 39% more likely to be avid MLS fans than the general population, with fandom rooted in community and family.
• 40% of all U.S. Hispanics already identify as World Cup fans, with enthusiasm strongest among first- and second-generation audiences.
• Hispanic sports fans are 11% more likely to buy from a sponsoring brand and 12% more likely to recommend sponsors, showing the clear ROI of authentic sports partnerships.
• 70% of Hispanic World Cup fans plan to engage on social media and World Cup mobile apps.

"Today's report contains many actionable and timely insights for marketers," de Armas concluded. "First, there is a wonderful, two-fold growth story: Hispanic consumers are one of today's fastest-growing demographics, commanding both economic, cultural and technological clout. Secondly, this is coming at a time when streaming is also reaching a critical inflection point, including surpassing broadcast and cable combined for the first time, which we reported on back in May. It'll be interesting and noteworthy to track the momentum of these two growth vectors moving forward."

The full report can be found here.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Three months after Nielsen announced that, for the first time in history, more U.S. viewers watched TV via streaming than via traditional broadcast, Roku confirmed the trend is continuing, announcing that U.S. viewers spent more time streaming content on Roku-powered devices than watching traditional broadcast television for the third consecutive month.

According to Nielsen data, streaming on Roku-powered devices accounted for 21.4% of all TV viewing time in the U.S. during July, surpassing broadcast TV’s 18.4% share. This continues a trend from May and June, when streaming on the Roku platform also outpaced broadcast. Roku’s share of TV viewing has grown steadily throughout 2025—up 14% year-over-year—reflecting not just a shift in technology, but how audiences discover and engage with the entertainment that shapes today’s culture, Roku claimed.

Roku remains the leading destination for streaming overall, by usage and TV unit sales. The Roku OS powers streaming on smart TVs and devices in over half of all internet-enabled households in the U.S.

“In broadcast’s heyday, TV guides directed us to ‘must-see’ television and the pop cultural moments we shared,” said Charlie Collier, President, Roku Media. “Today, the streaming platform is the guide, and the moments shaping culture are happening on Roku. We’re the ‘lead-in’ to TV for millions of viewers’ and partners’ journeys, connecting them to the content, live events, and experiences that define the streaming era.”

NEW YORK—Nielsen and WPP Media have announced a new agreement for audience measurement spanning TV, streaming, audio, and cross-platform ad performance via Nielsen ONE.

The companies are also planning to integrate Nielsen’s insights to Open Media Studio (OMS)–an end-to-end media delivery platform within WPP Open, WPP’s intelligent marketing system. That will enable seamless integration of Nielsen’s advanced audiences across the full media workflow, the companies reported.

“At WPP Media, our priority is equipping clients with the intelligence and tools they need to drive measurable growth,” said Nicolas Grand, executive director of research and investment analytics at WPP Media. “Nielsen’s continued innovation in advanced measurement—especially the combination of Big Data with trusted Panel insights—makes them a valued partner in that mission. By integrating Nielsen’s advanced audiences into WPP Open, we’re building a more seamless, interoperable planning and measurement ecosystem that empowers advertisers to optimize performance and accelerate growth.”

“We are thrilled to continue working with WPP Media to provide the most actionable insights across planning, buying, and measurement for brands to make the most informed decisions about their advertising investments,” said Matt Devitt, Head of Advertisers and Agencies at Nielsen. “Collaborating with leading industry players like WPP Media helps us collectively power the future of audience measurement and technology that actually helps advertisers connect with audiences.”

These new capabilities will help drive “interoperability and provide advertisers with more actionable insights to inform their campaign planning and measurement,” Nielsen said.

NEW YORK—Nielsen reports that viewing of ad-supported content got more popular in Q2, 2025, gaining 1.2 share points of overall TV viewing to capture a 73.6% share.

The data, from the second installment of Nielsen's Ad Supported Gauge (an extension of The Gauge service), found that in Q2 2025, the viewing share for non-ad-supported TV services dropped to 26.4%.

Streaming picked up 2.9 share points of overall ad-supported viewing compared to Q1, with the majority of that (2.7 share points) shifting over from ad-supported broadcast and the remaining 0.2 share points coming from cable. In Q2, broadcast had 26.0% of TV viewing of ad-supported content while streaming had 45.3% and cable had a 28.7% share.

Nielsen reported that the cable category had the benefit of a strong news cycle as well as broad coverage of the NBA playoffs while the streaming platforms continued to introduce newly available seasons of popular shows such as “Love Island USA”, “Squid Game” and “Ginny & Georgia”, as well as recently re-released series such as “Animal Kingdom” and “Blindspot”.

Specifically, the report found that overall viewing in Q2 was down by 9% compared to Q1 and viewing to ad supported content was down by 8%. Ad-supported broadcast dropped 16% and ad-supported cable was down by 8%. Ad-backed streaming held flat during a season when viewers tend to dial back on media consumption.

Earlier this year, Nielsen reported that streaming reached a historic milestone in May as its share of total TV usage outpaced the combined share of broadcast and cable for the first time ever, per the company’s May The Gauge report.

That report found that streaming represented 44.8% of TV viewership in May 2025—its largest share of viewing to date—while broadcast (20.1%) and cable (24.1%) combined to represent 44.2% of TV.

In a notable milestone for the streaming giant, Netflix is now one of the three largest media distributors, according to the June rankings of Nielsen’s 2025 Media Distributor Gauge, which ranks companies by their share of TV viewing.

It is the first time that the streamer has moved into the top three, Nielsen said, and comes as welcome news for Netflix, which is making a major push to expand its advertising business.

Netflix posted the largest monthly share increase across all media companies measured in Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge report for June, adding 0.8 share points from May to represent 8.3% of June’s TV usage total. That is its largest share of television since January 2025.

As reported in Nielsen’s The Gauge, while time spent watching streaming content in June was up over 5% compared to May, Netflix viewership surged 13.5% over the same period. Netflix viewing was powered by a packed slate of fresh content, as well as the annual summer increase in streaming-heavy viewers aged 6-17.

YouTube remained atop the Media Distributor Gauge rankings for a fifth consecutive month, thanks to a boost from school-aged audiences in June. The streamer notched a 6% monthly viewing increase over May and represented 12.8% of TV usage, its largest share of television to date. With a 2.8-point lead over second-place Disney, this marks YouTube’s largest lead among media distributors to date, the study found.

The report also noted that seasonal summer viewing trends, coupled with a lack of sports and new content, resulted in similar impacts across the multiplatform companies this month. The Walt Disney Co. represented 10% of total TV viewing in June and held onto its No. 2 ranking among media distributors. ABC affiliates notably accounted for the top 33 broadcast telecasts in June, driven largely by the NBA Finals and “ABC World News Tonight With David Muir.”

NBCU posted the fourth-largest total among media companies with 7.8% of TV viewing. Led by a 4.4 billion-minute month for its reality-dating series “Love Island USA,” Peacock notched a 13.4% monthly viewing increase in June and was the second-largest contributor across NBCU’s stable this month behind its NBC affiliates. NBCU’s viewership total was up slightly overall compared to May, although it gave up some share this month (down 0.2 share points).

The June 2025 interval ran from May 26 through June 29. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with measurement weeks that run Monday through Sunday.

NEW YORK—Streaming platforms continued to dominate TV viewing patterns in June, with data from Nielsen’s 50th monthly report of The Gauge showing that streaming viewership surged once again to represent 46.0% of television use.

Time spent streaming was up 5.4% in June versus May. That was primarily driven by both a standout month for Netflix and a seasonal influx in viewing from school-aged audiences, the report noted.

The June increase builds on landmark May viewing figures, which showed that streaming’s share of total TV viewing time for the first time ever surpassed the combined viewing share of broadcast and cable.

Netflix recorded the largest monthly uptick among streaming platforms in June, posting a 13.5% viewing increase over May and adding 0.8 share points to command 8.3% of TV. Overall, Netflix’s performance was so strong it accounted for 42% of streaming’s total monthly gain, the study found.

The considerable upswing for Netflix was powered by a slate of highly successful content, including its original series “Ginny & Georgia,” which was the most-streamed title of the month with 8.7 billion viewing minutes.

Nielsen also reported that the so-called Netflix effect was in full view with the immediate popularity of acquired series “Animal Kingdom” and “Blindspot,” which earned the second and third most-streamed titles in June and combined for 11.4 billion viewing minutes (5.71 billion and 5.69 billion, respectively).

Finally, Netflix rounded out the month with the release of the third season of “Squid Game,” which generated nearly 1 billion viewing minutes—per day—across the series in the final three days of the June interval.

Peacock was a close second to Netflix from a monthly increase perspective, notching a 13.4% usage uptick. Peacock’s increase was driven by the new season of its original series “Love Island USA,” which garnered 4.4 billion viewing minutes and was the fourth most-streamed title of the month. Peacock ultimately gained a tenth of a share point to finish with 1.5% of TV in June, up 0.3 points compared to June 2024, the study found.

Kids and teens were the other main driver of streaming’s share shift, as well as for the overall increase in total television usage, which was up 3% over May. With more time to spend in front of the TV, total usage among 6-to-17-year-olds was up 27% versus last month, and streaming accounted for two-thirds (66%) of their total time spent with TV in June. Not coincidentally, Netflix and Peacock both saw the largest month-over-month increases from the 6-17 year old group, with viewing from that cohort jumping 32% and 37%, respectively, versus May, Nielsen reported.

Also notable among this school-aged demographic was its contribution to the Other category, the report noted. While “other” contains a variety of sources, the main contributions come from video game console usage and set-top box usage. The Other category was up 14% overall versus May, but among 6-17 year-olds, the increase was much more significant, capturing a 41% bump.

Though broadcast and cable each exhibited declines in overall viewing in June, there were a few bright spots, the data indicated.

For broadcast, the NBA Finals on ABC represented the top seven telecasts of the month and helped lift broadcast sports viewership by 17% compared to May. In addition to the seven finals games, ABC took each of the top 12 telecasts in June, including the NBA trophy presentation and “ABC World News Tonight With David Muir.”

Cable also benefited from NBA viewership, as the NBA Conference Finals on ESPN and TNT ranked as the top two cable telecasts. A busy news cycle also drove cable news viewing up 12% versus May, and feature-film viewing also trended upward. Cable also benefitted from special programming, including the Army 250 Parade on Fox News Channel, which ranked fifth among cable programs with 2.8 million viewers, and “Good Night, and Good Luck” on CNN, which was seventh among cable programs in June with 2.4 million viewers.

Nielsen also stressed that the typical summer lull in traditional TV viewing had a notable impact.

The combined share of broadcast and cable fell from 44.2% of TV in May to 41.9% in June. On the whole, broadcast viewing was down 5% to represent 18.5% of total TV, marking the first time the category has fallen below a 20.0% share. Cable viewing was fairly flat compared to May, but the category still lost 0.7 share points due to the larger increase in overall TV usage and finished June with 23.4% of TV.

The June interval spanned May 26 through June 29. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with measurement weeks that run Monday through Sunday.

NEW YORK—During the landmark month of May, when streaming surpassed the combined viewing shares of broadcast and cable for the first time, Nielsen’s latest Media Distributor Gauge report found that pure-play streamer YouTube maintained the leading share of total TV viewing, while the largest monthly increases in share belonged to multiplatform distributors, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox.

Warner Bros. Discovery exhibited the largest gain of any distributor in May, adding 0.3 share points versus April to finish the month with 7.0% of total television usage.

WBD’s increase was overwhelmingly powered by TNT, which notched a 69% jump in viewership over last month due in large part to its coverage of the NBA Playoffs, Nielsen reported.

The eight New York Knicks games carried by TNT amassed nearly 7 billion viewing minutes combined. In fact, the NBA Playoffs generated 31.4 billion viewing minutes overall in May across WBD and Disney entities, with nearly a quarter of the viewing total attributable to Knicks games.

Fox added 0.2 points to its share of TV in May. While it was partly due to NASCAR traction on Fox Sports 1, Fox’s increase was primarily due to the continued growth of its FAST service, Tubi, Nielsen said.

Tubi achieved a platform-record 2.2% share of TV viewing in May, driven by a 25% increase among 18-24 year-olds, and accounted for nearly a third of Fox’s overall viewing total.

Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery each finished the month with a 7.0% share of TV, although WBD came out slightly ahead based on unrounded figures and moved up to sixth overall in the distributor ranking.

YouTube extended its streak as the leading media distributor to four consecutive months, gaining 0.1 share point in May to represent 12.5% of total TV. While YouTube actually exhibited monthly declines in virtually every demographic group (with the exception of audiences 65+), its overall decrease was ultimately less than that of total TV, leading to a monthly gain in share and yet another platform best, Nielsen explained.

Other key developments in the May distributor rankings included:

• NBCU moved up to third with 8.0% of television viewing.
• Paramount fell to fourth after losing a full share point, following the conclusions of the NCAA basketball tournament and The Masters.
• The Roku Channel also hit a new platform-best in May with a 2.5% share of TV, boosted by double-digit gains among the 12-17 and 25-34 age demographics.
• The May 2025 interval included dates 04/29/2025 through 05/26/2025. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar with measurement weeks that run Monday through Sunday.

NEW YORK—Nielsen is reporting that streaming reached a historic milestone in May of 2025 as its share of total television viewing outpaced the combined share of broadcast and cable for the first time ever.

According to Nielsen’s monthly report of The Gauge, streaming represented 44.8% of TV viewership in May, its largest share of viewing to date, while broadcast (20.1%) and cable (24.1%) combined to represent 44.2% of TV.

Nielsen reported, however, that the milestone of streaming exceeding traditional TV viewership is almost certainly not permanent. While the trend is likely to into the summer months, the balance will likely shift back—at least temporarily—as football kicks off and a new broadcast season returns.

Data from The Gauge, which debuted four years ago with the May 2021 report, also highlights how audience viewing habits have rapidly changed, with streaming usage increasing by 71% in the last four years. Meanwhile, broadcast and cable viewing have declined, with broadcast down 21% and cable down 39%.

Along with the 71% increase in streaming usage, six additional streaming services are now reported in the list of platforms that exceed a full share point of TV usage. The original list included Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Prime Video and Disney+, and has since been expanded by Nielsen to 11 platforms in the May 2025 report.

Among subscription services, Netflix has remained the leading SVOD provider in total TV usage for four straight years. Netflix’s viewership has climbed 27% since May 2021, and the streamer owned the biggest day in streaming history, thanks to two exclusive NFL games it live streamed on Christmas Day 2024.

Nielsen’s researchers also highlighted the fact that many programs—and by extension, other distributors—have benefited from being available on the SVOD giant through The Netflix Effect, where licensed content becomes an even bigger hit when distributed on the platform. This effect is illustrated by such streaming hits like “Suits” (Netflix / Peacock) and “Young Sheldon” (Netflix / Max).

Data from The Gauge also showed that free services have been a major driver of streaming’s overall success. Most notably, YouTube Main (excluding YouTube TV) has exhibited steady, significant growth and is up over 120% since 2021.

YouTube represented 12.5% of all television viewing in May, its fourth consecutive monthly share increase and the highest share of TV for any streamer to date.

Additionally, FAST services have become increasingly popular, and three have reached the reportable threshold in The Gauge. PlutoTV, Roku Channel and Tubi combined for 5.7% of total TV viewing in May, which is larger than any individual broadcast network this interval, Nielsen said.

The continued transformation of traditional media companies into streaming-first entities has also been a strong contributor to the growth of streaming. Platforms like Hulu, Paramount+ and Peacock have expanded their accessibility to create crucial points of connection with streaming-native audiences, complementing rather than competing with their linear counterparts.

This trend extends beyond original and catalog content, Nielsen noted. It is also demonstrated by successful simulcasts of sporting events like Super Bowl LIX on FOX and Tubi, and the 2024 Olympics on NBC and Peacock. Virtually all subscription-based platforms now have ad-supported components as well, which are creating a critical new element to the television landscape from an agency and advertiser perspective as they seek to reach streaming-centric consumers.

The May 2025 interval included dates 04/28/2025 through 05/25/2025. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar with measurement weeks that run Monday through Sunday.

NEW YORK—Nielsen and Vizio have announced a multi-year agreement that provides the audience measurement firm with viewership information from the set maker’s Inscape Smart TV data.

Nielsen, which began licensing Inscape for national addressable measurement in 2021, now has the right to integrate Vizio’s Inscape data in both its local and national audience-measurement solutions.

The deal also includes a period of exclusivity for data gathered from an expanded roster of 400 local stations that will be processed by Inscape’s systems.

Vizio’s Inscape data captures viewing data from millions of connected TV devices (including cable box, set-top box , DVR, etc.) and streaming environments. Automatic content recognition (ACR) data provides scale, granularity and timely insights, enabling greater understanding of what is being watched in millions of U.S. households by measuring on-screen content regardless of source.

Through this agreement, Nielsen can now add Big Data from a pool of about 20 million smart TVs, a key enhancement that includes coverage for 400 stations across local U.S. markets that currently include Local People Meter, Set Meter and Portable People Meter panels.

“At Nielsen, we are committed to innovating as consumers further embrace new ways to watch their favorite programs,” said Michelle Gelman, global head of Nielsen’s Content and Syndicated Products. “Inscape’s ACR data from one of the leading Smart TV manufacturers will help us drive value to our clients and, ultimately, help them drive ROI as they seek to reach their audience.”

Added Vizio chief revenue and engagement Officer Mike O’Donnell said: “As viewing trends shift and audiences fragment across different services, Inscape has been at the forefront of powering products that are better for the consumer experience and bringing greater transparency and scale to the measurement sector. We’re excited to work with Nielsen and for the inclusion of our opted-in viewing data in Nielsen’s services as we continue to help the entire TV marketplace evolve.”

Nielsen’s panels will be used to validate what is missing in big data sets, including complete representation, over-the-air inclusion, validation of diverse representation, understanding when the TV is on or off, and person-level measurement. Nielsen will add Big Data to its national TV measurement beginning in September, a major step towards the launch of Nielsen One, the forthcoming single, deduplicated solution for cross-media measurement.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has launched The Ad-Supported Gauge, a new quarterly report that provides a comprehensive look at the portion of television that delivers advertising across broadcast, cable and streaming.

Initial data from the service shows that ad-supported offerings still dominate TV viewing and that ad-supported streaming platforms account for a significantly larger share of TV viewing than broadcast or cable.

The good news for broadcasters in the run-up to the 2025 upfronts is that in Q1 of 2025, nearly three-quarters (72.4%) of TV viewing was on ad-supported platforms, compared to 27.6% for ad-free platforms.

But ad-supported streaming platforms account for a significantly larger share of TV viewing, accounting for 42.4% of ad-supported TV viewing. “Traditional TV” (cable and broadcast) is tied at about 29% to account for about 58% of total ad-supported TV.

“Every day, our clients use our data to make informed decisions about their business. As we head into the Upfront, this ad-supported layer to our industry-defining Gauge report provides deeper levels of analysis to help guide advertising strategies,” Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said.

The new insights are made possible by enhancements to Nielsen Streaming Platform Ratings that leverage the Streaming Meter, which is available to subscribers. The Ad-Supported Gauge provides a quarterly view of the landscape, with the next edition available ahead of the fall TV season.

NEW YORK—A new Nielsen report highlights how Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) consumers are driving major shifts in digital commerce, sports engagement and media. Data shows the audience segment consists of avid consumers of sports programming, spending 15% more time watching live sports than the general population. The report also found that streaming now accounts for more than half of the time members of the demo spend watching TV.

Nielsen's latest 2025 report—“Breakthrough ROI: Investing in Asian American Audiences and Media”—also found that AANHPI adults are more digitally connected, spending 9 hours, 6 minutes a week logged on to their computers, almost an hour more than all U.S. adults.

Since January, streaming has dominated 53% of Asian Americans' total TV time, up from 45% last year. Very notably, one-fifth of that viewing (20%) is on YouTube—almost twice that of the total U.S. population.

“As digital media and commerce evolve, Asian American consumers are leading the charge, embracing interactive and shoppable ad experiences at higher rates than the general population,” Nielsen Senior Vice President of Diverse Insights and Intelligence Stacie M. de Armas said. “Marketers who recognize the importance of cultural connection in their digital strategies will build stronger relationships with this influential and engaged audience.”

As brands invest more in digital advertising—83% of marketers planned to shift spending to digital channels this year—AANHPI audiences are proving to be a key force, the researchers said. They are digital-first shoppers, with 43% having clicked on a social media ad, compared to 36% of the total U.S. population. In fact, Asian Americans spend nearly an hour more online than the total U.S. adult population, and are more likely to find ads on retailer websites helpful for discovering new products.

Another notable finding is that AANHPI audiences are watching more live sports than ever—spending 15% more time viewing than the general public and 33% more likely to subscribe to sports-specific streaming platforms. Sports podcast listenership is also growing fast, up 28% between 2022 and 2024, Nielsen reported.

In addition, these audiences are vital in amplifying major moments in sports, from the 2024 World Series—where Asian American viewership spiked 146%—to surging interest in women’s college basketball, according to Nielsen.

Likewise, AANHPI viewership of the 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship jumped nearly 70% year-over-year, while the WNBA Draft saw a 240% increase. This year, Natalie Nakase will become the first Asian American head coach in the WNBA, leading the new Golden State Valkyries, as players like Te-Hina Paopao, of Polynesian heritage, continue to build momentum with fans.

There's also growing excitement around global sports with strong Asian roots, especially cricket. Thirteen percent of U.S. adults now identify as cricket fans, fueled in part by the country's fast-growing Indian population. The 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, co-hosted by the U.S., drew record crowds, and cricket's Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028 promise even greater visibility, the research suggested.

As fandoms grow, so does the desire for representation: 37% of AANHPI sports viewers say they want more culturally relevant advertising during games—signaling a clear opportunity for brands to show up with authenticity, the report noted.

Other key highlights of the 2025 report include:

• 59% of AANHPI consumers expect brands to support causes they care about, compared to 51% of the total U.S.
• 70% of AANHPI millennial consumers will stop purchasing from brands that devalue their community.
• On podcasts, unaided brand recall for CPG advertisers is 80% for AANHPI listeners, compared to 59% overall.
• Asian Americans age 50-64 are 8% more likely than the general U.S, market to rely heavily on the internet to evaluate products before buying.
• AANHPI audiences over-index the total U.S. for share of time spent with Netflix (128) and Prime Video (198), which also have the highest percentage of programs featuring Asian talent at 39.4% and 35.5%, respectively.

Download the 2025 report "Breakthrough ROI: Investing in Asian American audiences and media" for more details and insights. Visit www.nielsen.com/asian-american to learn more.

NEW YORK—Warner Bros. Discovery captured the largest monthly viewership increase among media distributors in March, according to Nielsen’s latest Media Distributor Gauge report, which breaks down the total TV viewing of content distributed by major media companies.

In the March report, WBD exhibited 3% growth in television viewing compared with February, primarily driven by March Madness coverage on TBS, TNT and truTV. Tournament games were also available to stream on Max, which allowed for additional reach to notably younger consumers.

Max notched the largest month-over-month growth among streaming services in March (up 6%), further contributing to Warner Bros. Discovery’s significant monthly gains, the report explained.

Max’s increased viewing was due in large part to HBO megahit ‘The White Lotus,’ which was No. 4 among most-streamed titles in March with 4.5 billion viewing minutes. The debut season of Max original series ‘The Pitt’ also contributed, generating 2.3 billion viewing minutes across the month and charting in Nielsen’s Streaming Top 10 for the first time during the week of March 17.

YouTube captured 12.0% of overall TV viewing in March to secure a second consecutive month as the top reported media distributor, eclipsing its previous company best share of TV of 11.6%, which it set last month, the researchers noted.

Disney gained half a share point over February to account for 10.5% of TV watch-time in March. Disney benefited from its successful cross-platform simulcast of “The Oscars,” which drew 20.3 million viewers across ABC and Hulu, in addition to the return of “American Idol” and the continued strength of “ABC World News Tonight With David Muir.”

Paramount advanced to No. 3 in the Media Distributor Gauge rankings in March (up from fifth in February) with an 8.5% share of TV (up 0.3 share points). Paramount rode the success of March Madness coverage on CBS, coupled with a robust drama lineup on the network, including “Tracker” and “Matlock,” which drew 10.7 million viewers and 9.2 million viewers, respectively, across the month. “Tracker” episodes represented five of the top 10 broadcast telecasts in March, averaging over 10 million viewers each (on a live-plus-7-day basis).

Despite a 0.1 point decline in viewing share versus February, NBCU climbed from No. 6 to No. 4 in the distributor rankings and finished with 8% of TV viewing in March. Although it did not change from a ranking perspective, The Roku Channel also set a platform record with 2.2% of television viewing, per Nielsen data.

The March interval ran from Feb. 24 to March 30. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar with measurement weeks that run Monday through Sunday.

NEW YORK—Nielsen has announced that the Graham Media Group has renewed and expenaded its multi-year agreement for Local TV measurement across their six markets (Detroit, Houston, San Antonio, Orlando, Jacksonville, Roanoke).

The expanded agreement also includes Scarborough, which provides consumer insights that connect the dots between media consumption and local brands, retailers, and consumer behaviors.

New to the agreement is Nielsen’s Local Over the Top (OTT) measurement, which captures incremental impressions to Local TV and reports them with comparable metrics for the benefit of buyers, sellers, and content producers, and Digital Content Ratings (DCR), which Graham Media will use in their Jacksonville market.

These solutions will provide Graham Media stations with cross-platform insights to drive new content and revenue opportunities, the two companies reported.

“We are excited to continue working with Nielsen as our measurement provider and are encouraged by their commitment to innovation that matches our own,” said Catherine Badalamente, president and CEO at Graham Media Group. “Trusted audience insights are critical to understand our audience across all platforms and equip our advertisers with data to inform their strategies.”

“Nielsen is proud to expand our partnership with Graham Media Group and deliver the most comprehensive view of their Local Linear, Digital, and Streaming audiences,” added Paul LeFort, managing director of Nielsen’s Local TV business. “Our commitment to innovation, including enhanced insights backed by our comprehensive Big Data + Panel Local TV measurement, empowers broadcasters, publishers & advertisers with accurate, representative & cross-platform measurement to drive the Local TV business forward.”

NEW YORK—Paramount Global and Nielsen have inked a new, multiyear deal that will provide measurement for all of the company’s platforms, including national and local broadcast, all cable networks,and streaming on Paramount+ and Pluto TV.

In addition, Paramount has licensed new Nielsen services as part of this agreement, including Advanced Audiences, Big Data + Panel, Ad-Supported Streaming Platform Ratings, Nielsen One Ads for Connected Television and national out-of-home expansion to inform advertising, programming and licensing strategies.

“Paramount and Nielsen are committed to addressing Television’s multiplatform future to the benefit of all of our stakeholders,” George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS and co-CEO, Paramount Global, said. “[Nielsen CEO] Karthik [Rao] and his team continue to meet the needs of our marketplace across all our platforms, and we are incredibly pleased to reinforce and reinvigorate our deal with our longtime partner.”

Along with the new agreement, Nielsen also released new viewing data for Paramount.

In terms of sports, the data showed that CBS’s broadcast of the AFC Championship Game on Jan.26 averaged 57.7 million viewers, setting the all-time record for the AFC and the largest overall NFL conference championship in 15 years. CBS coverage of the 2024 NFL regular season included three of the top five NFL games in October; the highest rated game (27.5 million viewers) in the November interval; and two of the top five in a hotly contested December.

As the broadcast season swung into action this fall, the data also showed that CBS was once again establishing itself as a leader in broadcast dramas, building on its track record to develop new franchises. “Tracker” came back for its second season and took the crown as the top drama program in October (11.3 million average viewers), November (11.6 million) and December (10.8 million).

The reimagined “Matlock” came in a close second to “Tracker” in all three months and was joined by “FBI,” “Elsbeth,” “NCIS,” and the farewell season of “Blue Bloods” in the top 10 every month this fall. The total viewing time by Americans of CBS dramas across the fourth quarter of 2024 topped 50 trillion viewing minutes, which approaches 100,000 years of viewing, more than any other broadcast network.

Paramount+ also experienced major success in 2024 with original series “Lioness,” “Tulsa King” and one of the most talked about shows of the season, “Landman,” which has given the platform its first billion-minute (in a week) performer. The three titles have all appeared in the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 simultaneously in multiple weeks this fall, another first for the platform. Paramount also earned wins for its multi-platform strategy. In 2024, the most-watched new dramas across broadcast and streaming combined were Tracker, with 26.07 billion minutes viewed (CBS, Paramount+, Hulu) and “Elsbeth,” with 14.94 billion minutes viewed (CBS, Paramount+).

NEW YORK and ATLANTA—Nielsen and Cox Media Group (CMG) have inked a multiyear renewal agreement for television and audio measurement services covering CMG's local television and radio stations.

As part of the agreement, CMG will continue to utilize a comprehensive suite of Nielsen measurement services to sell advertising.

CMG’s businesses include 14 television brands in 9 markets. The TV portfolio includes multiple primary affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telemundo and MyNetworkTV, as well as several independent stations.

CMG has 50 radio stations delivering multiple content genres in 10 markets and numerous streaming and digital platforms.

More information is available at coxmediagroup.com.