YouTube, Disney and Netflix held steady as the top three companies in Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge for August.
Though YouTube gave up 0.3 share points, it finished the month on top with 13.1% of viewing. Disney finished in second with a share of 9.7%, which was driven by a 4% bump for ABC affiliates and 25% surge for ESPN due to the return of football season. Netflix lost 0.1 share point, but held steady in third with 8.7% of television on the strength of owning the top four streaming titles of the month.
Football also contributed to gains for NBCUniversal and Paramount, which rounded out the top five at 7.6% and 7.1% of TV viewing, respectively, and Fox, which was given a 14% boost from its affiliates to reach a 6.7% share, putting it in sixth place.
When comparing the first and last weeks of the August interval, viewing for Fox affiliates was up 36%, ABC affiliates gained 29% and ESPN surged 196%, which was due at least in part to the season premiere of “College GameDay.” Disney’s share of TV started at 8.9% in the first week of the month and concluded with 11.5% of TV in the final week.
The remainder of the list included Warner Bros. Discovery with 5.8% of TV viewing, Amazon with 3.9%, The Roku Channel with 2.8%, Scripps with 2.2%, Weigel with 1.4%, A+E and Hallmark with 1.1% each and AMC Networks with 0.8%.
Overall, the broadcast and cable categories notched their first TV viewership gains since April, finishing the month with shares of 19.1% and 22.5%, respectively. As for streaming, the category finished August with a share of 46.4%, down over 4% from the previous month.
Total time spent watching TV was down 2% month-over-month in August, but viewing among kids and teens ages six to 17 was down 9% over the same period.
Viewing levels between the first (July 28 to Aug. 3) and last weeks (Aug. 25 to Aug. 31) of the interval dropped 21%. Streaming usage among school-aged viewers also exhibited similar declines, dropping 8% on a monthly basis in August, and losing 22% from the first week versus the last week of the month.
