(Stock image via Pixabay, Graphic by The Desk)
(Stock image via Pixabay, Graphic by The Desk)
The telecast of Super Bowl LIX on Fox Sports last month helped traditional television platforms capture a larger share of time spent with TV compared to streaming video apps and services, according to the Nielsen.
Broadcast and cable TV collectively accounted for 44.4 percent of all time spent with TV in February, Nielsen’s latest “The Gauge” report revealed, while streaming services captured 43.5 percent of time spent with TV that month.
Broken down by category, cable TV had 23.2 percent of time spent with TV in February, while broadcast TV accounted for 21.2 percent. Those platforms captured nearly twice the time spent with TV compared to the leading streaming service, YouTube, which accounted for an 11.6 percent share of time on TV all on its own.
With February being a short month, Nielsen said its measurement period for its latest The Gauge report started on January 27 — it isn’t unusual for the report to include a portion of time in the preceding month — and ran through February 23.
Compared to January 2025, streaming grew its share of time spent with TV by nearly 1 percent, while cable and broadcasting each saw their individual share declining on a month-over basis. Nielsen attributed some of the drop-off for cable and satellite to the conclusion of the NFL’s regular season and playoff window, as well as the conclusion of the college football season in January.
Still, the Super Bowl was a strong driver to all forms of television, earning Fox a record-breaking 127.7 million viewers across its broadcast network, cable channels and streaming service Tubi, “which clearly resonated with consumers and further illustrated how cross-platform distribution has materialized into real world success,” a Nielsen analyst wrote.
(Chart courtesy Nielsen Media Research)
(Chart courtesy Nielsen Media Research)
Super Bowl LIX was the second most-watched TV event in history in terms of minutes consumed, with Fox and its partners logging 110 billion viewing minutes. It wasn’t quite enough to top Super Bowl Sunday in February 2024, which had this year’s Super Bowl beat by a half-billion minutes — but it was still an impressive feat nonetheless, Nielsen said.
Fox’s decision to offer a free simulcast of Super Bowl LIX on Tubi achieved the network’s goal of using the biggest event of the year to draw attention to its free, ad-supported streaming platform, with Tubi accounting for a third of all streaming TV usage that day, the Nielsen report revealed. For the month, Tubi’s share of time spent with TV was 2 percent, its largest lead to date.
Across streaming services, YouTube continued to dominate, while Netflix had 8.2 percent of all time spent with TV, down 0.4 percent compared to January. Disney’s streaming services saw a slight increase in share with 4.8 percent of time spent with TV; this was the second month Nielsen counted Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus as a single streaming entity. Amazon’s Prime Video saw its share drop slightly to 3.5 percent, compared to 3.7 percent in January.
Comcast’s Peacock grew its share of time spent with TV to 1.5 percent in February, up from 1.4 percent in January, while Paramount Plus saw its share fall by 0.1 percentage points to 1.3 percent. Max also experienced a decline, ending February with 1.2 percent. Among free streamers, The Roku Channel continued its dominance, with 2.1 percent of all time spent with TV, just edging out Tubi for the lead. Pluto TV grew its share to a solid 1 percent.
The dip across some streaming services wasn’t necessarily representative of the quality of content offered between January and February. Instead, it appeared to follow seasonal trends: January typically sees more time spent with TV because the NFL and college football seasons are wrapping up with nationally-televised games (some of which are available on network-owned streaming services) that are broadcast over a sustained period throughout the month. February, by comparison, has the Super Bowl and a few award shows, which are scattered throughout the month.
That said, traditional TV benefitted from higher interest in the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off tournament and from increased cable news coverage of the first few weeks of President Donald Trump’s second non-consecutive term in the White House. Increased interest in domestic politics resulted in higher viewership of the hockey tournament and cable news channels. Cable news channels accounted for 27 percent of all cable viewing, spurred by an uptick in viewership at Fox News, which saw its lead grow by 8 percent during February.