Editor’s note: This iteration of The Gauge includes a channel change that correctly differentiates Hulu Live and Hulu SVOD viewing. This change does not reflect a change in usage. In fact, it shows how viewing is appreciated. The result is about half of the share share, which covers both Hulu SVOD and full streaming.
Total television consumption rose 2% in October, boosted by a 9.4% increase in television viewing. Although October’s rise in weather was not exceptional, this year’s gains were achieved without the benefit of a new energy system. In the absence of new scripted programming, the increase in radio coverage was due to sports programming.
A strong NFL schedule and MLB’s World Series were the drivers of a 15% increase in televised game viewing, making October its third consecutive profitable month. It was also the biggest gain in broadcasting since January 2023. The increase in sports viewing also attracted more young viewers: television viewing among 18-24 year olds rose 15%. On a year-over-year basis, however, total television viewership was down 5.6% and sports quality was down 8%.
Cable gained double digits in both the news and sports categories (17% and 19%), while news, which took the top spot crown, took 21.8% of cable viewing. While these gains led to a 0.9% increase in viewership, it wasn’t enough to keep pace with TV’s current trend, resulting in a monthly loss of 0.3 points to drop to 29.5%, the cable group’s smallest share to date.
In contrast to broadcasting, advertising also gave a share for the third month in a row, although consumption was lower than in September (-0.6%). Without the changes in the methods mentioned above, however, the share loss would have been only 0.4 instead of 0.9. Although usage was standard across platforms, October had a number of unique features:
Clothes remained the top program, but viewers fell to third place from September.
- Clothes it remained the top program, but viewers dropped to third place since September. Netflix, which offers Suits along with Peacock, retained eight of the top 10 titles in October.
- Disney+ viewership was up 1.5%, maintaining the top two titles: Bluey and Elemental.
- Amazon Prime Video usage rose 1% and is still up Thursday thanks to the NFL game.
Barring a rush of new records this fall, it’s likely that we’ll continue to see usage on TV until the mid to late first quarter of 2024. At that point, it’ll be interesting to see if usage spikes, which would be a different trend than what we’re used to seeing at that time of year. .
What happens in October data is Brian Fuhrer
The Gauge provides monthly analysis of viewership trends across major television delivery platforms, including broadcast, broadcast, cable and others. It also includes the division of large groups, which are transferred individually. The chart represents monthly television consumption, broken down by category and by distributor.
Methods and frequently asked questions
The Gauge’s data comes from two panels weighed separately and combined to create the chart. Nielsen’s advertising data comes from the subset of TV programs served by Meter within the National TV group. TV content (broadcast and cable), and total usage is based on viewership from Nielsen’s entire TV network.
All data and time taken for each viewing source. The data, which represents the broadcast month, is based on Live + 7 viewing at the time of reporting (Note: Live + 7 includes live television viewing and viewing up to seven days later to access live content).
Within The Gauge, “other” includes all other TV uses that do not fall into the broadcast, cable or broadcast categories. This mainly includes all other processing (unmetered sources), unmetered video on demand (VOD), audio downloads, games and other devices (DVD players).
Starting in May 2023, Nielsen began using Video Viewers to determine the content broadcast by the platforms predicted in the service to reset what is viewed on the top cable boxes. These views lead to streaming opportunities and to the platform that distributed them. It will also be removed from another category, where it was previously displayed. Content not identified as original within Streaming Content and viewed via cable set-top box will also be included.
Advertising platforms listed as “alternative advertising” include any high-quality video broadcasts that are not broadcast. Programs designed to provide live and cable (linear) radio (VMVPD or MVPD programs like Sling TV or Charter/Spectrum) are not included in “other broadcast.”
Linear broadcasting (as defined by the combination of vMVPD/MVPD programs) is not included in the broadcast category as broadcast and cable channels viewed through these programs are subject to its own category. This change in strategy was implemented by February 2023.
Online browsing through vMVPD apps (eg, Hulu Live, YouTube TV) is not included in the streaming service. ‘Hulu SVOD’ and ‘YouTube Main’ within the search group refer to the use of the platform without including linear streaming.