NEW YORK—While live sports continues to be a mainstay of TV programming and a reliable producer of large audiences, a new survey from consumer research platform Attest indicates that live TV viewing continues to fall out of favor with consumers, particularly younger viewers.
Attest’s sixth annual “U.S. Media Consumption Report,” which covers how Americans consume television, audio, news and social media, found the share of consumers watching three or more hours of TV of any type per day stands at 56% in 2025, down from 61% last year and 63% the year before. The most committed TV watchers are those aged 50 to 67, (66% of whom watch at least three hours a day).
Live TV bore the brunt of the showdown. Slightly less than three in ten consumers (28%) of consumers said they generally don't watch any live TV on an average day (up from 24% last year and 20% in 2023), with even high percentages avoiding live TV among younger viewers.
A hefty 41% of under-30s reported that they typically don’t watch live TV (versus 27% of 31-49s and 20% of over-50s). Under-30s who do watch live TV are most likely to say they watch it for between 30 minutes to one hour per day.
The survey also found that viewing times for streaming services have also decreased, with a 4 percentage-point decline in people watching for three or more hours, and a corresponding increase in those streaming in one- to two-hour viewing sessions.
A third of consumers now stream TV for one to two hours per day, the researchers said. People under the age of 30 watch the most, with one quarter typically viewing programming on a streaming TV platform for one to two hours a day and another quarter chalking up three to four hours per day.
The survey also provided some specific data on individual streamers. After suffering a 9-point decline in regular viewers last year, according to Attest’s data, Netflix has only managed to regain a couple of percentage points. Overall, about 64% of consumers say they watch Netflix at least once a week.
The research found that Prime Video and Disney+ have enjoyed the most growth, both increasing weekly viewers by four percentage points. Sitting at 49%, Prime Video now enjoys its highest percentage of weekly viewers since Attest has been measuring this data point, while Disney+ is yet to surpass its 2023 peak of 38% (currently at 35%).
Other TV streamers remain more or less static, aside from Max, which has recorded a 4 percentage point loss to 25%. This compounds the previous year’s loss, when viewership fell from 33% to 29%. Apple TV+, meanwhile, continues to struggle to secure any meaningful U.S. market share, watched weekly by just 12%.
Looking at the viewing profile of different streamers, 18-to-30-year-olds are the top viewers of Netflix (77%), Hulu (57%) and Disney+ (46%). Consumers aged 31 to 49 dominate Prime Video (55.5%), Paramount+ (31%), YouTube TV (19%) and Apple TV+ (13.5%). Meanwhile, Peacock, Apple TV+ and Sling have a fairly even age distribution, the study found.
In terms of digital news, young Americans are accessing digital content less regularly: 41% of the 18-30 demo now views digital news at least once a week (a decline of 7 percentage points from last year), while 20% read digital magazine content weekly.
The over-50s are the biggest consumers of digital news, with 66% accessing it weekly, an increase of 6 percentage points. This age group is also more likely to be viewing digital magazine content than previously (weekly viewing is up four percentage points to 20%), but it’s 31-to-49-year-olds who read the most: 27% access it at least once a week.
Men are also more likely to access both news (60% vs. 54% for women), and magazine content (27% vs. 20% of women) on a weekly basis.
While the survey once again documented the ongoing decline of traditional media like TV, radio and newspapers, it also found declines in social media usage, particularly in the over-30 demo and among heavy social media users who spend more than three hours a day with the platforms.
The percentage of consumers spending three plus hours on social media per day has decreased by 6.5 percentage points to 30%. The decline comes primarily from Americans aged 31 to 49, who have cut back on three-hour-plus sessions for a second year running (down by 10 percentage points to 27%). This age group has significantly slashed long scrolling sessions since 2023, when 45% spent more than three hours on social per day. Now, they’re most likely to say they spend one to two hours online per day.
Consumers under 30s have also reduced the amount of time they spend online, recording a seven percentage point drive in sessions over three hours since last year. However, a sizable 46% still spend long durations on social platforms each day. Looking at just how much time 18 to 30s spend scrolling, Attest sees 21% spend three to four hours, 16% spend five to six hours and an addicted 9% spend more than six hours a day.
Older Americans (aged 50-67) typically spend up to an hour on social media each day, and only 21% spend more than three hours. When it comes to the biggest doomscrollers, women are three times more likely than men to spend six or more hours a day on social platforms (10% versus 3%). Interestingly, consumers with a lower household income are also notably more likely to indulge in long social sessions than higher earners (33% versus 22% spend over three hours a day).
All the social media platforms in Attest’s survey failed to chalk up growth in daily users over the last year—with TikTok being the singular exception. TikTok has increased daily users by 5 percentage points to 30%. Meanwhile, X and Facebook have both suffered small losses: daily usage of X has fallen by 4 percentage points to 16%, and by three percentage points to 52% for Facebook.
This move puts Facebook on a par with YouTube for daily users. But when Attest combines daily users with people who visit at least three times a week, the data finds that YouTube is striding ahead as the nation's most popular platform (71% versus Facebook’s 65%).
Looking at movement in the use of social platforms by different demographics, the data sees 18-to-30-year-olds are responsible for TikTok’s growth, with a 12 percentage-point increase in daily users among this age group (to 53%). This makes TikTok as popular as Instagram for the under 30s. BeReal, on the other hand, has fallen off the radar with only 2% of under-30s using it daily, and 82% never using it.
