Soccer and youthful viewers drove ad-supported TV viewing to a brand new excessive in 2025, accounting for 74.2% of total viewership within the fourth quarter, in contrast with non-ad-supported TV’s 25.8% share, in accordance with Nielsen.
Advert-supported viewing was up 9% in comparison with the third quarter, outpacing the 7% improve in complete TV viewing.
When damaged out by class, 45.6% of ad-supported viewing got here from streaming, whereas 29.6% got here from broadcast and 24.8% got here from cable. Broadcast noticed the most important quarterly leap of any ad-supported viewing class in 2025, rising 22% and including 3.2 share factors within the fourth quarter.
Soccer was a significant driver for broadcast, as sports activities viewing surged 135%, practically doubling its third-quarter share of the class to 34%. General, ad-supported broadcast noticed its largest improve amongst viewers ages 25–34, up 41%, whereas the important thing demographics of adults 18–49 and 25–54 additionally posted positive aspects of 31% and 29%, respectively.
In December, YouTube was the main distributor of TV utilization with a 12.7% share, adopted by Disney at 10.7% and Netflix at 9%. Rounding out the highest 5 have been Paramount with 8.6% and NBCUniversal with 8.2%.
The rest of the checklist included Fox (7%), Warner Bros. Discovery (5.4%), Amazon (4.3%), The Roku Channel (3%), Scripps (1.7%), Weigel Broadcasting (1.3%), Hallmark (1.2%), A+E Networks (0.9%) and AMC Networks (0.7%).
General, the streaming class made up 47.5% of TV viewership in December, whereas broadcast made up 21.4% and cable made up 20.2%. Christmas Day 2025 shattered the streaming viewership document with 55.1 billion viewing minutes.
