Television viewers are spending more time watching streaming content than linear TV, but sports continues to be a bright spot for broadcasters, according to the findings of a Samba TV market report.
The report, “The State of Streaming U.S. Market Q4 2025,” finds viewers spend 60% of their time watching streaming content, while 40% is spent viewing linear television. It notes that the split “serves as the foundational metric for content production and media buying strategies.”
“We have officially crossed he chasm where no one single platform within streaming or linear commands a dominant share of the audience,” the report says.
However, there are several segments where streaming appears to have the upper hand. When it comes to shows available on both linear and streaming, the report finds 67% of viewership of those shows happens via streaming. Further, programming that premieres on linear TV and is available 24 hours later on demand is mostly streamed, the report says.
The report also reveals that streaming subscriptions drive substantially more movie viewership than paid video on demand (VOD). On average eight times more people viewed top films offered as part of a streaming subscription. One example is “Moana 2,” which experienced a 651% increase compared to its paid VOD performance, the report finds.
The report also finds ad-supported viewing is achieving critical mass with more than 50% of subscription VOD (SVOD) subscribers choosing ad-supported plans, meaning advertisers now have premium-scale opportunities Prime Video, Hulu and other platforms.
Linear television remains strong when it comes to sports and other major cultural events. NFL playoff games and the Super Bowl dominated linear viewing, accounting for the top five broadcasts. Excluding sports, top linear programs included “The 96th Academy Awards,” the inauguration of President Donald Trump and “60 Minutes,” the report says.
The report notes that streaming platforms are making major moves to capture this audience, endangering broadcast TV’s lifeline.” It points to Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” and “WWE Raw on Netflix” as just the beginning of the effort to garner sports fans.
“For advertisers, streaming sports unlock precision targeting unavailable in linear broadcasting, combining live event scale with digital advertising’s targeting capabilities,” the report says.
The report’s findings are based on a large proprietary dataset to project household-level TV viewership using its research panel of more than 3 million smart TVs.
The report is available on the Samba TV website. Registration is required.
