Streaming TV Viewing Passed Cable Last Month in Industry First

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Author: Christopher Palmeri Source: Bloomberg

The amount of time US audiences spent watching online TV surpassed cable for the first time ever.

Subscribers to services like Netflix and Hulu accounted for 34.8% of all TV consumption in July, the research firm Nielsen said Thursday. That edged out cable TV at 34.4%. Broadcast was a distant 21.6%.

Audiences watched an average of 190.9 billion minutes per week of streamed content in July, Nielsen said. That passed the tally for April 2020, when people were stuck at home because of the pandemic. While consumers spent almost 23% more time streaming, cable and broadcast viewing slumped.

Netflix gained share thanks to hit such as “Stranger Things” and “The Umbrella Academy.”