Traditional TV Viewing Increases 5% in January

Linear television reclaims its share in premium video. Nielsen’s January The Gauge ™ report analyzes viewership across traditional TV and streaming. TV viewing was up 5% from December. Highlights include:

Broadcast Television

•   Broadcast TV viewing increased by 0.1 pt, up to 22.5% share of traditional TV and streaming viewing. Overall broadcast viewing increased by 5.1% MoM.
•    Increases in both drama series and news viewership, increasing by 15% and 18% respectively.
•    Large increases thanks to NCAA and NFL football. The NFL AFC Championship on CBS claimed the month’s largest audience at 57.4 million viewers.

Cable Television

•   Cable TV viewing increased by 0.6pt, up to 24.4% share of traditional TV and streaming viewing. Cable viewing acquired a 7% monthly viewing increase.
•    26% increase in news viewership, FOX News Channel leading with their Inauguration Day coverage.
•   The College Football Playoffs accounted for the top seven cable telecasts of the month, led by the National Championship Game on ESPN with 22.1 million viewers.

Streaming

•   Streaming experienced a 3% MoM increase in viewership
•   Disney streaming services (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+) collectively have the second largest streaming share at 4.7% of viewing.
•   Paramount+ accumulated 4.4 billion viewing minutes in January reporting the platform’s best TV share with 1.4%, thanks to the hit series Landman.

Streaming has been a hot topic for the past couple of years, with the number of services increasing yearly. Yet, linear TV has begun to reclaim viewing share, airing the most viewed programs in January in both sports and regular programming.

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Source: Nielsen,February 2025. “The Gauge ™ : Traditional TV Gets a Boost from Football and News in January 2025.”