According to Nielsen’s monthly gauge report, YouTube attracted more viewership ratings than any streaming service during July. This is the six months since free video sharing sites have appeared in addition to Nielsen’s rankings, this time achieving 13.4% of all television viewing.
That summation is doubly impressive in the context of the platform’s overall reach. Nielsen only measures viewers on TV screens, but YouTube meets a significant portion of viewers on mobile devices (perhaps over companies like Netflix and Disney), and the true proportion of streaming viewers could be even higher.
Disney was ranked second after YouTube. Beyond two streamers, Hulu and Disney+ (which will be combined into one app next year), it accounted for 9.4% of TV viewers in July. According to Nielsen, the four-point difference between YouTube and Disney is the biggest lead taken by media companies since Gauge began tracking the company’s television use in November 2023.
As always, Netflix also retained its spot in the top three, accounting for 8.8% of all TV usage this time. Nielsen points out that jumping on the viewership of 215,000 minutes from its June total, making it the only platform to grow in each audience demographic, with the largest number of viewers. On No. 9, the Roku channel had the highest gain proportionally, earning 2.8% of all television viewers. It’s a 7.5% lift.
“Summer is Beautiful” and “Bosch” spinoff Ballard increased Amazon to fourth place, with just 3.9% of the platform’s best 4% in December.
Nielsen also said that gauge trends are likely to begin to change as the fall television season begins. The return of sports and network projects will change viewer habits.
