Streaming Accounts for 44.3% of TV viewing in April, vs. 45.3% for Broadcast and Cable Combined
‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘The White Lotus’ Lead Among Streaming Titles, Lifted By Multiplatform and Multichannel Distribution Strategies
NCAA Basketball Championships, The Masters, NFL Draft and NBA Playoffs Score Big for Broadcast and Cable
NEW YORK – May 20, 2025 – For a third consecutive month, streaming’s share of total TV viewing reached a record high in April, according to Nielsen’s monthly report of The Gauge™. Time spent streaming accounted for 44.3% of total TV viewing in April, adding a half-point over March and 1.7 points since January.
Compared with April 2024, streaming usage has increased 15% and gained 5.9 share points, where broadcast has declined 7% and lost 1.4 share points, and cable has dropped 16% and lost 4.6 share points. However, these changes have put an even stronger emphasis on media companies’ multichannel (i.e. traditional TV and streaming) and multi-platform (multiple streaming services) content distribution strategies, which, in turn, have contributed to the consistent increases in streaming viewership.
April’s top streaming title, ABC´s Grey’s Anatomy, is a prime example of both multi-channel and multi-platform distribution success. Grey’s racked up 3.9 billion viewing minutes across Hulu (within ‘Disney’ streaming) and Netflix in April, and continued to engage viewers with new episodes from its current, 21st season on both ABC and Hulu. Season 21 streams exclusively on Hulu and accounted for 10% of Grey’s Anatomy’s total streaming viewership this month, despite representing just 3% of its episode count. Netflix represented about 60% of its streaming total this month.
Max (within ‘Warner Bros. Discovery’ streaming) again benefited from new episodes of HBO’s The White Lotus, which garnered 3.7 billion viewing minutes on the platform and claimed the second most-watched streaming title this month. This consecutive monthly boost from The White Lotus helped WBD’s streaming offering maintain its 1.5% share of total TV in April.
YouTube and The Roku Channel each notched platform-best shares of TV in April. Like the overall streaming category, YouTube also hit a platform high for a third straight month with 12.4% of total TV watch-time (+0.4 pt. vs. March). Since January, YouTube has added 1.6 points to its share of TV, and is up 2.8 points since April 2024. The Roku Channel gained 0.2 share point over March to achieve 2.4% of overall TV viewing this month. The Roku Channel’s viewership has increased 21% since November, the same interval when it began offering access to Max and other streaming platforms from within the service*. Year-over-year, The Roku Channel leads all reported distributors with a 67% increase.
Time spent watching broadcast TV in April accounted for 20.8% total usage (+0.3 pt.). The top genres within broadcast were dramas, representing 30% of viewing, followed by news at 14%. The Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship game drew April’s largest broadcast audience with 18.3 million viewers on CBS (up from 7.5 million in 2024 on TBS). The Masters golf tournament finale on CBS also notched a significant audience increase from 2024, up 36% to 13 million viewers this year.
Cable gained 0.5 share points compared to March to represent 24.5% of total TV watch-time this month. ESPN’s coverage of the NFL Draft on April 24 averaged 6.4 million viewers and was the most watched cable telecast in April, while FOX News Channel’s The Five represented the next nine of the top ten telecasts. The first round of the NBA playoffs also contributed to cable sports gains this month, with ESPN and TNT hosting five games apiece and averaging 3.1 and 2.8 million viewers, respectively.
* The approach of extending streaming subscriptions through other streaming services is relevant to statistics in The Gauge™. Under most circumstances, a streaming platform’s viewing credit is based on where a streaming program is viewed, while a streaming program’s viewing total is independent from the app through which it is viewed. For example, WBD’s Max is available via a Hulu bundle as well as within The Roku Channel and others more recently.
The April 2025 interval included dates 03/31/2025 through 04/28/2025. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar with measurement weeks that run Monday through Sunday.
About The Gauge™
The Gauge™ is Nielsen’s monthly snapshot of total broadcast, cable and streaming consumption that occurs through a television screen, providing the industry with a holistic look at what audiences are watching. The Gauge was expanded in April 2024 to include The Media Distributor Gauge, which reflects total viewing by media distributor across these categories. Read more about The Gauge methodology and FAQs.
About Nielsen
Nielsen is a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics. Through our understanding of people and their behaviors across all channels and platforms, we empower our clients with independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and engage with their global audiences—now and into the future. Learn more at www.nielsen.com and connect with us on social media (X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram).
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