Streaming accounted for 34.1% of all TV usage in March 2023. According to the latest figures from Nielsen, this represented the streaming category’s first loss in share since August 2022.
Due to events like March Madness and The Oscars, March is always a big month in the live TV calendar. However, this March, total TV usage was down 2% month over month and 4.6% when compared to the same period last year.
While Streaming dropped to 34.1% (down from 34.3%), it still remained the main way TV was consumed in the month. In comparison, Cable accounted for 31.1%, Broadcast accounted for 23.3%, and the Other category accounted for 11.6%.
Based on the March data, Cable was the only category that saw an increase last month, growing almost 1%. However, cable viewing was also down 13.7% when compared to the year before.
Outside of live TV, YouTube remained the single most used service overall with a 7.8% share. For reference, this YouTube percentage excludes YouTube TV as Nielsen no longer includes MVPD and vMVPD data as part of the streaming category. Completing the top five services was Netflix at 7.3%, Hulu (excluding Hulu Live TV) at 3.3%, Prime Video at 1.8%, and Disney Plus at 1.8%.
Elsewhere, Peacock saw a slight increase (up from 1% to 1.1%) while Tubi maintained its 1%. February was the first time that Tubi made it to the 1% mark, highlighting its continued growth. Speaking of free streaming services, one of Tubi’s main competitors, Pluto TV saw an increase of 0.1%, up from 0.7% to 0.8%.
