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.
