NFL Revives Broadcast TV In September; Netflix Claims Top 3 Streaming Titles But Still Declines In Viewership, Nielsen Says

Katie Campione
·2 min read

It’s that time of year again — football is back, and the broadcast networks are cheering.

Viewership across broadcast television increased nearly 13% in September, according to Nielsen’s latest state of TV report, The Gauge. Among the 18-49 and 25-54 demographics, there was an even higher increase, somewhere around 30%. This marks the second consecutive month that broadcast has experienced an uptick in usage. In all, broadcast represented 23% of TV usage in September.

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This is because both the NFL and college football seasons began, which heavily bolster both broadcast and cable. Nielsen reports the broadcast sports genre saw a whopping 360% increase in viewership since both football seasons began (compared to a 222% increase during the same period the year prior).

Naturally, cable also felt the impacts of sports viewership, though not nearly as much, only up 25.5% month-over-month. ESPN carried the top 11 cable telecasts this month, 10 of which were football-related. The U.S. Open took ninth place.

In all, cable viewing actually fell slightly, by about 1.1%. It lost a bit of its TV usage share, representing about 29.8%

Cable also felt a positive impact from sports viewership, exhibiting a 25.5% increase in the sports genre in September. ESPN carried the top 11 cable telecasts this month—10 of the 11 were football-related, and the U.S. Open took ninth place. Overall, cable viewing in September fell slightly (-1.1%) from August, and the category lost 0.4 share points to represent 29.8% of TV usage.

Streaming viewership also declined in September, marking the second consecutive month that this category went down. But despite losing a bit of its share, streaming still made up 37.5% of total TV usage, which is by far the most out of the three categories.

According to Nielsen, Prime Video saw the largest uptick in viewership, about 7.5%, thanks to Thursday Night Football and the second season of The Wheel of Time. The streamer has now reached a personal best share of television at 3.6%.

Netflix actually declined in viewership this month, despite hosting the month’s top three streaming titled — Suits, shared with Peacock, Virgin River and One Piece. The streamer lost 5% of its viewership in September.

Paramount+ and Peacock also declined about 5% in viewership, while Disney+ only lost about 1.6%. That might have something to do with the sheer number of new, popular titles on Disney+ in September, like Bluey, Ahsoka, Elemental and The Little Mermaid.

See more details about TV usage in September below:

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