Linear TV Viewership Dips Below 50% as Streaming Viewership Continues to Rise

Updated: Aug 23, 2023

Old cable TV with animated face, TV with streaming apps and a hand holding an Apple TV remote
It finally happened.

As recently reported by multiple news outlets, linear TV viewership (broadcast and cable) accounted for less than half of U.S. TV usage in a measurement month for the first time in July 2023. According to Nielsen, broadcast viewership accounted for only 20% of all TV viewership (down 5.4% from July 2022), while cable viewers were only 29.6% (down 12.5% from 2022). That’s a total of 49.6%.

In a stark contrast, streaming viewership reached a record high of 38.7%. In fact, streaming has consistently outperformed cable every month since November 2022. In July, YouTube – not including YouTube TV – collected 9.2% of total TV usage all by itself, and Netflix accounted for another 8.5%. (FYI, the “other” 11.6% percent of viewership is credited to things like video games and physical media playback, such as Blu-ray.)

The numbers will probably not hold – football season is coming up, after all – but the declining viewership of cable simply can’t be denied. As audiences move toward steaming services, does your PEG channel have a strategy? Are you ready to deliver live and VOD content to your viewers online?

Luckily, you don’t have to start from scratch. Cablecast Automation helps streamline your multiplatform workflow, so you can write once and publish everywhere. We also make it easy for you to create an OTT channel app that’s supported by Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, iOS, and Android.

You also don’t have to fly blind into the streaming world. Our new Audience Measurement Dashboard, which is available with Cablecast version 7.6 or later, will give you insights into the viewing habits of your online viewers. Learn what programs are most popular, peak viewership hours, and more for your live and VOD content. We monitor traffic from all your streaming platforms using Cablecast REFLECT and Cablecast REFLECT+, our content delivery services. Plus, Cablecast can even store your content in the cloud so you can avoid third-party complications. Find out more here.

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