More people are consuming media through streaming on TVs than cable television for the first time, according to Nielsen’s monthly breakdown.
In its monthly tracking begun last year, Nielsen said 34.8% of viewing was through streaming, exceeding cable at 34.4% and broadcast television at 21.6%.
This trend has been happening for years as viewing habits continue to shift away from traditional TV viewing. Streaming increased 22.6% year over year, according to Nielsen measurements.
Cable as a share of TV viewing has fallen 9.8% year over year and broadcast declined 8.9% over that same period of time.
Netflix in July remains the top streamer at 8% of all media consumption measured by Nielsen fueled by new seasons of “Stranger Things,” “The Umbrella Academy” and “Virgin River” and new original films such as “The Gray Man” and “The Sea Beast.”
It was followed closely by YouTube (7.3%). Hulu at 3.8% had its best month ever with series like “Only Murders in the Building” and the new “The Bear” bringing in viewers.
Amazon’s Prime Video (3%) was helped by the newest season of “The Boys” and the new show ‘The Terminal List.”
Trailing those services were Disney+ at 1.8% and HBO Max at 1%. Other streaming services including Paramount+, Discovery+ and Peacock collectively took in 10.2%
Nielsen, by the way, only tracks viewing on televisions and not viewing on smartphones, tablets and laptops. If those were included, streaming has likely exceeded traditional TV viewing for quite a long time.
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