Women’s NCAA Tournament Boosts March Cable Viewership; ‘Love Is Blind,’ ‘The Gentlemen’ & ‘Avatar’ Dominate On Netflix, Nielsen Says

Katie Campione
·1 min read

Once again, TV usage was down in March with broadcast TV receiving the smallest percentage among the primary viewing categories.

Broadcast TV saw a 6% usage decline from February to March, accounting for just 22.5% of viewing. Year-over-year, broadcast viewing has fallen 4%, according to Nielsen’s monthly report, The Gauge.

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On a yearly basis, cable viewing saw the largest usage decline at 10%. However, it remained resilient at 283.% of viewing thanks in part to March Madness. Sports cable viewing was up 43% in the month of March, according to Nielsen, which also notes that the women’s NCAA tournament had a larger impact on viewership than it usually does.

The State of the Union also gave cable a boost, since 32.2M viewers tuned into that March 7 event.

Streaming is still making up the majority of TV usage, only falling 1% from February to represent 38.5% of the total share. As is typical, YouTube took the largest streaming share with 9.7%, but Netflix came in second with 8.1% — led by Love is Blind, The Gentleman, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, which combined for nearly 15 million viewing minutes in the March interval.

In fact, Nielsen reports that streaming viewership is actually up 12% versus a year ago, despite its drop month-to-month.

See more below.

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