Streaming Keeps Surging In July, With YouTube, Netflix And Roku Channel Hitting New Nielsen Highs

Streaming continued to break records in July, accounting for 47.3% of all viewing via TV screens according to Nielsen‘s latest Gauge report.

Netflix, YouTube and the Roku Channel all hit new highs in terms of market share, as broadcast and cable downshifted as usual during the peak of summer. Linear networks will assuredly bounce back as football season returns, turning back to streaming tide, but for now the already dominant new digital players are only increasing their footprints.

Netflix had eight of the month’s top 10 streaming titles, paced by Squid Gamewhose final season propelled the Korean series to 5.4 billion total viewing minutes. Acquired titles like Animal Kingdom and Blind Spot also racked up huge numbers for Netflix.

A close runner-up to Squid Game was Love Island USAa massive hit for Peacock at 5.3 billion minutes. The NBCUniversal service upped its tune-in by 3% from June to set a new non-Olympics record with 1.8% of total viewing.

Percentage-wise, Netflix was far higher at 8.8% market share, but the SVOD leader was outflanked by YouTube’s 13.4%.

In terms of month-to-month gains, the Roku Channel led all platforms, rising 7.5% over June to hit 2.8%, within just a percentage point of Amazon’s Prime Video.

While broadcast TV accounted for only 18.4% of total viewing, one standout category was news, which jumped 28% over June. ABC’s World News Tonight grabbed 19 of the month’s top 20 titles on broadcast. (Fox’s coverage of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the only non-ABC title on that list.)

Cable told a much less upbeat story, with news falling 11% and sports dropping 17% from the prior month.

Here’s the July market share chart:

And here’s a 13-month snapshot of streaming viewership trends: