Broadcast TV continues to win back some market share, but it most definitely is on the back of nothing but sports.
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Broadcast TV was able to win back some of its market share in October and now sits at 22.9%. This is due in no small part to the NFL season, with football games representing the top 15 broadcast events.
Cable TV is still sitting in the same range as it has been for months with 22.2% of all television viewing.
YouTube on TVs gained back a bit of the market and sat at 12.9% in October. In January, it was 10.8%; in February, it was 11.6%. While it may have slid some this month, it’s still showing it has a lot of power.
Meanwhile, Netflix, slid back even further to an even 8% share. It was at 8.6% in January, 8.2% in February, and 7.9% in March. With Stranger Things on the horizon, we imagine the numbers will climb for a bit.
Disney’s numbers now encompass all of Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN, and grew in October to 4.8%, up from 4.5% in September.
Overall, streaming grew slightly to 45.7% in the month, up from 45.2%.
Nielsen – The Gauge – October 2025
HBO Max is no longer being broken out on its own and is now lumped in with Discovery Plus under the Warner Bros. Discovery banner. It held steady at 1.3%, but with the company currently up for sale, there is no telling where it will be in the near future.
Paramount Plus and Pluto are reported together and sit at 2.1%, up slightly from 2%. With Paramount in the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, should they merge, they would only be at 3.4% of the market, still behind Disney, despite two major studios coming together.
In the realm of FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television), Tubi grew slightly to 2.2%, while the Roku Channel is holding steady at around 2.8%.
It’s clear the television market is due for some upheaval. With the ever increasing cost of sports broadcast rights, there will come a breaking point for all of these companies. Should someone ever manage to take the NFL off of broadcast, it feels like the networks would be doomed, and that is a difficult world to imagine.
IMAGE SOURCE: Shutterstock – Streaming – Poxima Studio
