Streaming ramps up its share of TV usage in November

Time spent on television took another ramp up in November, which actually marked the second-highest month in terms of TV usage in 2022 - and once again, the bulk of those gains went to Streaming over alternate uses.

The time spent overall with a TV rose 7.8% from the previous month, and only January saw more overall television usage, according to "The Gauge" from Nielsen, the ratings giant's monthly overall look at TV delivery platforms. That came in part due to Thanksgiving, the second-biggest TV day of the year (behind January's NFL Wild Card Sunday).

And Streaming - which in July took over from Cable as the top use of a TV set - picked up most of the increase. Its usage rose 10.2% for November, and Streaming boosted its share of TV usage to a record 38.2%, its ninth straight month of share gains.

Streaming usage in terms of volume was up more than 41% vs. the previous November, in 2021.

Cable, which led all uses of TV until Streaming took over in the summer, saw its share drop for the third straight month, to 31.8%. And after a strong fall TV season bump, Broadcast, whose share ticked up in November, saw its share of TV time drop back to 25.7%.

"Other" use - a category that is heavily videogaming use, but also includes viewing video discs - saw a typical drop-off during back-to-school, but built its share to 4.3% in November.

As for the share of specific streamers, it was a good month to be among the sector's gorillas so far, as Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), YouTube (NASDAQ:GOOG) (GOOGL) and HBO Max (NASDAQ:WBD) all saw usage volume jump by double digits from October.

In relative share, YouTube/YouTube TV (GOOG) (GOOGL) grew to 8.8% from the prior month's 8.5%; Netflix (NFLX) rose to 7.6% from a previous 7.2%; Hulu (NYSE:DIS) (CMCSA) dipped to 3.9% from October's 4.0%; Amazon Prime Video (AMZN) fell to 2.6% from 2.8%; Disney+ (DIS) held steady at 2.0%; HBO Max (WBD) rose to 1.2% from the prior 1.1%; and free ad-supported Pluto TV (PARA) (PARAA) was steady at 0.9%.

The catchall "Other streaming" (including smaller services like Crackle (CSSE) as well as linear streamers like Spectrum (CHTR), DirecTV and Sling TV (DISH)) kept growing, boosting its combined share to 11.3% from 10.8%.

Turning to the weekly streaming content ratings, when it comes to drawing crowds of eyeballs to particular shows it's still Netflix's (NFLX) game. Boosted by a new season, royal drama The Crown took over the top spot for the Nov. 14-20 week, with 1.777B minutes streamed.

And Netflix held the next six spots on the chart as well, and nine of the top 10. The only interloper was a success at Peacock (CMCSA), Yellowstone, which landed at No. 8 with 643M minutes streamed for the week.

The top 10 overall: No. 1, The Crown (NFLX), 1.777B minutes; No. 2, Dead to Me (NFLX), 1.39B minutes; No. 3, Manifest (NFLX), 1.284B minutes; No. 4, Where the Crawdads Sing (NFLX), 1.092B minutes; No. 5, 1899 (NFLX), 925M minutes; No. 6, CoComelon (NFLX), 860M minutes; No. 7, Slumberland (NFLX), 651M minutes; No. 8, Yellowstone (CMCSA), 643M minutes; No. 9, NCIS (NFLX), 642M minutes; and No. 10, Grey's Anatomy (NFLX), 639M minutes.

(Nielsen streaming ratings now incorporate viewing from seven major streamers: Amazon Prime Video (AMZN), Apple TV+ (AAPL), Disney+ (DIS), HBO Max (WBD), Hulu (DIS) (CMCSA), Netflix (NFLX) and Peacock (CMCSA).)

Pay TV distributors: Comcast (CMCSA), Charter (CHTR), Dish Network (DISH), Verizon FiOS (VZ), Optimum/Suddenlink (ATUS), Atlantic Broadband (OTCPK:CGEAF), Sparklight (CABO).

Relevant local broadcast tickers: Nexstar Media Group (NXST), Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI), Gray Television (GTN), Tegna (TGNA), E.W. Scripps (SSP). National broadcasters: ABC (DIS), NBC (CMCSA), CBS (PARA) (PARAA), Fox (FOX) (FOXA). And some ad-tech names tied to connected TV: The Trade Desk (TTD), Magnite (MGNI), PubMatic (PUBM), Criteo (CRTO), Roku (ROKU).