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.
