Unsurprisingly, Super Bowl LX and the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics were very good for NBCUniversal and Versant. Viewership across the two companies made up 13.1% of all TV viewing during the month of February, according to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge report, which was released on Tuesday.
The Media Distributor Gauge measures total TV viewership by media company. Ten percent of that viewership belonged to NBCUniversal with the remaining 3.3% coming from the corporation’s cable-focused spinoff company, Versant. NBCU-Versant saw a 48% increase in total TV viewership compared to January. The companies also saw their best TV share since the Paris Olympics in August of 2024, a month during which NBCU accounted for 13.4% of all TV viewership.
As per usual, the Super Bowl accounted for the largest TV audience during the month of February, bringing in over 125 million viewers. The NFL’s big game then provided a bump for NBC’s Olympics viewership, which increased viewership for NBC affiliate stations by 60% throughout the month in question.
On the streaming side, Peacock saw a 64% increase in February viewing and recorded its highest share of television to date when it comes to The Gauge, accounting for a 3% share of TV viewing. Peacock’s simulcast of the Super Bowl accounted for 20% of the game’s audience and helped make Feb. 8 the platform’s most-watched day of all time. Peacock’s viewers were also notably younger as 73% of its Super Bowl audience were 50 years old or younger compared to 54% of NBC’s audience. The streamer also saw a Big Game boost for its new original series “The ‘Burbs,” which was the most-watched episode of the month across all original titles.
Finally, on the cable side, USA Network saw a 234% increase in February viewerships thanks to the Olympics, and MS NOW saw a 7% increase. Cable news viewership overall was up 4.4% during the month in question.
As for the rest of the Media Distributor Gauge report, YouTube came in second place during the month of February, accounting for 12.7%. It was followed by The Walt Disney Company (9.9%), Netflix (8.4%) and Paramount (7%).
On the streaming-specific side, YouTube led the month when it came to platform-specific streaming, accounting for 12.7% of all TV. That was followed by Netflix with 8.4%; the Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu bundle with 5%; and Prime Video with 3.9%. Tubi was also the only streamer other than Peacock to see a month-over-month viewing increase, jumping to 4.1% during February.
Typically, Nielsen’s The Gauge report and Media Distributor report come out the following month, but that wasn’t the case for February’s installment. In early March, it was reported that Nielsen was planning to use new data from the Advertising Research Foundation in its reports. When it was revealed that this new methodology would lead to an increase in cable and broadcast networks and a decline for streaming, there was an industry uproar. To handle the criticism, Nielsen pushed back the February report multiple times before finally releasing it on Tuesday. This report does not include the new methodology, which will be paused until the fall.
“While we planned to share February’s The Gauge and Media Distributor Gauge on March 24, we will be pushing the delivery of both reports back,” a letter from Nielsen to its partners, obtained by TheWrap, noted. “We will not be making any methodological changes for The February Gauge and will be releasing it in April with the same methodology that we used for January.”
