YouTube hit a record 11.6% of all TV viewing in February, according to the latest edition of Nielsen‘s Distributor Gauge Report.
The top finish was only YouTube’s second, largely due to Nielsen methodology, which groups together all platforms of the Walt Disney Co. (including ESPN, ABC and streaming). Disney in February fell to No. 2, while Fox Corp. rode a surge of tune-in to the Super Bowl across broadcast and streaming outlet Tubi to edge Netflix and end up third. (See full ranking below.)
YouTube has been on a long-term growth trajectory in the Nielsen statistics and recently announced that living-room viewing had exceeded that on mobile devices and computers. In just two years, YouTube’s share of total TV viewing has jumped 53%, going from 7.9% to 11.6%.
The overall viewing upturn has been increasingly driven by older audiences, Nielsen said. Viewing from adults 65 and over has nearly doubled in the last two years, rising 96%. That older demo now makes a contribution to the total that is similar to kids aged 2 to 11 (15.4% vs. 16.9%).
Another striking aspect of YouTube’s rise to dominance has been the fact that it is less reliant than most peers on tentpole programming. Rather, it draws from a wide array of popular creator-driven programming. The Nielsen numbers are U.S.-only; globally, YouTube reaches billions of subscribers.
Disney’s slip was caused in part by the absence of NFL playoff games as well as the College Football Playoffs, which boosted the media giant’s stats in January, Nielsen said.
Along with the Super Bowl, Fox benefited from a 3% month-to-month increase in Fox News Channel viewership, which drove 37% of the company’s total viewing. (Tune-in gained intensity in February as the Donald Trump administration began making a series of moves.) Fox Sports 1 viewership was also up 45% compared with January, primarily due to NASCAR races.
Here’s the full chart from the February report:
