Football and younger viewers drove ad-supported TV viewing to a new high in 2025, accounting for 74.2% of overall viewership in the fourth quarter, compared with non-ad-supported TVâs 25.8% share, according to Nielsen.
Ad-supported viewing was up 9% compared to the third quarter, outpacing the 7% increase in total TV viewing.
When broken out by category, 45.6% of ad-supported viewing came from streaming, while 29.6% came from broadcast and 24.8% came from cable. Broadcast saw the largest quarterly jump of any ad-supported viewing category in 2025, rising 22% and adding 3.2 share points in the fourth quarter.
Football was a major driver for broadcast, as sports viewing surged 135%, nearly doubling its third-quarter share of the category to 34%. Overall, ad-supported broadcast saw its largest increase among viewers ages 25â34, up 41%, while the key demographics of adults 18â49 and 25â54 also posted gains of 31% and 29%, respectively.
In December, YouTube was the leading distributor of TV usage with a 12.7% share, followed by Disney at 10.7% and Netflix at 9%. Rounding out the top five were Paramount with 8.6% and NBCUniversal with 8.2%.
The remainder of the list included Fox (7%), Warner Bros. Discovery (5.4%), Amazon (4.3%), The Roku Channel (3%), Scripps (1.7%), Weigel Broadcasting (1.3%), Hallmark (1.2%), A+E Networks (0.9%) and AMC Networks (0.7%).
Overall, the streaming category made up 47.5% of TV viewership in December, while broadcast made up 21.4% and cable made up 20.2%. Christmas Day 2025 shattered the streaming viewership record with 55.1 billion viewing minutes.
