Driving Video Audiences In September; Streaming, Football And New TV Programs

September is one of the months each year when viewing patterns notably change. With school back in session summer vacations have ended. The daylight hours are growing shorter with each passing day keeping people at home. The movie theaters that had been packed with blockbuster films are no longer. With a new broadcast season starting, viewers are returning to watch their favorite returning programs as well as newer shows that were promoted throughout the summer. Also the NFL a ratings behemoth kicks-off a new season. With TV usage level increasing both media executives and ad buyers are scrutinizing the audience for the new season.

According to Nielsen’sNLSN
Gauge report for September 2022 the audience share of broadcast television grew by 12.4% compared to August, an indication that viewers were sampling the new broadcast season. While the audience share for broadcast TV in September totaled only 24.2%, it was the highest share since May when the 2021-22 broadcast season ended. The September 2022 share however was below the 26.3% in September 2021, a decline of 7.1%. With the new NFL season underway Nielsen reported a whopping 222% increase in sports viewing on broadcast TV compared to August. Sports accounted for one-quarter of all broadcast TV viewing.

Once again, the audience share for streaming in September was the highest of any video source. For the month streaming video recorded an audience share of 36.9%. It marked the third consecutive month that streaming video share outpaced all other video sources. September was also the seventh consecutive month the audience share for streaming video had increased. In August streaming video recorded an audience share of 35.0% and 27.7% in September 2021.

Helping to boost the audience share of streaming video was a methodological change Nielsen made. Beginning with September, viewing data for streaming video will be based on a Live + 7 days as opposed to live only used in previous months. The result being an additional 1.0% share added to streaming video from the “other” category. Nielsen said the change also impacted “linear streaming” (e.g., YouTube TV and Hulu Live). Linear streaming on MVPDs and vMVPDs represented 5.4% of total television usage and 14.5% of streaming in September. Broadcast and cable content viewed through linear streaming apps also credits its respective category.

In a first, YouTube (including YouTube TV) at 8.0% recorded the highest share of any streaming video source surpassing NetflixNFLX
. It was the highest audience share YouTube had ever recorded by the Gauge Report and also matched Netflix’s best share posted last July. For September Netflix had an audience share of 7.3%.

Hulu, which includes Hulu Live, also had its strongest month to date with a 3.8% share. HBO Max benefiting from House of Dragon and the availability of Game of Thrones, increased its overall audience share to 1.3%, a month-over-month increase of 9.9%, the largest growth of any streaming service. Paramount’sPARA
ad supported Pluto TV garnered a 1.0% audience share, its highest to date.

Surprisingly, the audience share of AmazonAMZN
Prime Video was 2.9%, identical to August. In September Amazon debuted The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, the most expensive TV program to date whose first episode delivered 25 million viewers globally and NFL’s Thursday Night Football which averaged over ten million viewers. Nielsen notes that year-over-year Amazon’s audience share grew by 34.7%. Last September Amazon had recorded a 2% share.

In September the audience share for Disney+ was also flat at 1.9%, despite a slight 2.4% increase in viewing. The audience share for the remaining streaming video providers fell below 1.0% including Apple TV+, Peacock, Discovery+ and Paramount+.

With cord cutting continuing and media owners taking the profits from cable television and investing them in streaming platforms, the audience share for cable television dropped to 33.8% in September, its lowest to date. By comparison, cable television’s audience share in August was 34.5% and for September 2021 was 37.6%, a year-over-year drop-off of 9.3%. Despite the decline, the return of football was a bright spot for cable TV accounting for an increase in sports viewing of 40%.

Similar to years gone past the return of football and a new broadcast TV season resulted in a monthly increase in overall viewing of 2.4% compared to August.

AUDIENCE SHARE BY VIDEO PLATFORM

Sept. 2022 Aug. 2022 Sept. 2021

Streaming 36.9% 35.0% 27.7%

Cable TV 33.8% 34.5% 37.6%

Broadcast TV 24.2% 22.1% 26.3%

Other* 5.1% 8.5% 8.4%

Source: Nielsen Gauge Report

Audience Persons 2+

*Other Category includes video gaming, etc.