Streaming Just Overtook Traditional TV For The First Time, With YouTube Leading The Pack

Nielsen’s TV viewership numbers for May are official, and for the first time ever, streaming is more popular than broadcast and cable TV combined, with YouTube leading the charge.

Last month, cable and broadcast TV viewership fell to just 24.1 and 20.1 percent of US audiences, respectively, for a grand total of 44.2 percent of all market share. Meanwhile, streaming services increased 0.5 percent over their April numbers to 44.8 percent total, with a not-so-surprising entry leading the pack.

At 12.5 percent of all television viewing, YouTube is far and away the single most popular streaming service in the US at the moment, nearly doubling Netflix’s 7.5 percent share and dwarfing Disney’s third place-worthy 5 percent. In fact, splitting up streaming services into individual entries allows for YouTube to place third for overall television viewing, just behind traditional cable and broadcast networks.

This represents YouTube’s fourth consecutive monthly share increase, up 0.1 percent from April and 1.7 percent from January. It’s an obvious landing spot for younger audiences more interested in creator-based programming rather than the traditional style of media you’ll find on both broadcast TV and rival streamers, and gives an easy explanation to Google’s ongoing war over ad blockers on YouTube.

Outside of YouTube, other free services have continued to grow. While Netflix and Disney+ do continue to hold second and third place among streamers, respectively, FAST services like the Roku Channel and Tubi both report over 2 percent of eyeballs, with rivals like Paramount’s Pluto TV also gaining traction.

At a macro level, streaming service usage is up 71 percent since Nielsen first began reporting these numbers four years ago this month. At that time, streaming barely took up one-fourth of total viewership in the US. Now, those numbers have finally begun to flip.

Assuming you’re part of that near-45 percent, what have you been watching on streaming?

Add 9to5Google to your Google News feed.