Media Stats: ESPN & TNT Win With NBA Finals Increases and Roku Joins Streaming Data
Broadcast: TV viewing saw a total drop of 4.4% in the month of May; driven by reduced broadcast and cable viewing and posting a drop of 5.5%. This makes broadcasts fifth month on a decline since the top of this year; January. As a result, broadcast lost 0.3 share points dropping down to 22.8% the lowest share point percentage in over a year. The ending of the NBA sports season largely attributed to a 25% drop in sports. The year-over-year basis for broadcast viewing was down by 5.6%.
Cable: Cable TV was also affected by the total drop in May, posting a drop of 5.4%. Following suit, cable dropped 0.4 share points ending its two-month streak of share gains. On the other hand, coverage of the NBA Finals on ESPN and TNT fueled a 12% increase in sports viewership – accounting for the top cable programs for the month of May. The year-over-year basis for cable viewing is down 13.7%. According to Nielsen Total Day | Persons 2+ rating Cable stands at 31.1%.
Streaming: With the addition of the Roku Channel counting towards streaming services numbers for streaming have increased drastically. After the 2.1 drop in viewing for April, May usage makes a comeback in streaming usage to grab 36.4% of total viewing. The change in numbers comes as a better method to capture streaming usage amongst viewers, reflecting half of the 2.5% increase. Regardless, total TV usage was still affected from April. Netflix's top streaming titles brought in a combination of 2.7 billion minutes. YouTube continued its 4-month streak of maintaining top platform status, gaining 0.4 share points accounting for 8.5% of TV.
Nielson Total Day | Person 2+ data for May states that streaming grew this month from 34.0% to 36.4%. YouTube attributed 8.5%, Netflix 7.9%, Hulu growing to 3.7%, Amazon Prime Video growing to 3.1%, Disney stalling at 1.8%, Tubi jumping to 1.3%, HBO Max following suit at 1.2%, Peacock at 1.1%, Roku entering at 1.1%, and Pluto increasing to 0.9%; other streaming amounted to 5.8%.
Other: Content devices: Roku, Firestick, etc. lost 0.1 share points from April (11.6%) to (11.5%) in May. The other category has been on a minimal decline losing 0.1+ share points a month since January. The Nielson Total Day | Persons 2+ accumulated 9.7% this month, dropping almost 2% from last month’s 11.5%. Other content devices in the streaming trended category also dropped from 6.9% to 5.8%; an almost 1% difference.