Nielsen's monthly total TV viewing snapshot, The Guage, reported April as another month of high records for streaming. Streaming captured 30.4% of full TV viewing and surpassed its previous record of 29.7% set in March 2022. While overall TV viewership fell by 2.1% in March, streaming volume remained nearly unchanged, helping to boost its share by over 0.6%.
Even though Netflix said it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, which sent its shares into a tailspin, its share price stayed at 6.6%. YouTube had a 6.1 %, which is up from a 6.0 %. Hulu had a 3.3 %, which stayed the same. Amazon Prime Video had a 2.5 %, up from 2.3%, and Disney Plus had a 1.7 %, which is down from 1.8 %. Other streamers had 9.2% of the market, less than the 9.8% they had before.
Nielsen said that a significant drop in sports viewing and the end of seasons and series of dramas hurt the share of broadcast. With the NBA playoffs and the final games of the Final Four, people were watching sports on cable. However, 16.9% fewer people watched cable news.
The Gauge also showed that HBO Max reached a 1% share of streaming for the first time. This achievement allowed it to move out of the "Other Streaming" category and join other streaming services that have already passed the 1% share mark. The "Other Streaming" category, which includes all high-bandwidth video streaming on TV that isn't broken out separately, has grown by more than two share points since The Gauge was first released in May 2021. According to Nielsen's State of Play report, this category's steady growth shows that audiences are becoming more interested in the growing number of streaming platforms.
The Gauge, the monthly total TV viewing snapshot from Nielsen - April 2022