NEW YORK—The return of the NFL and college football kicked off significant viewing gains for media companies in September, as Disney reclaimed the top spot in Nielsen’s media-distributor rankings, accounting for 11.3 percent of TV viewing. The Paris Summer Olympics pushed NBCUniversal to the top of the rankings in August.
Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge, which ranks media companies by their share of TV viewing, found that Disney notched a 17 percent viewing increase in September and added 1.8 share points over August—the largest share increase among all reported distributors.
Disney’s 17% growth can be attributed to gains from ESPN (+101%), ESPN2 (+165%), and its ABC broadcast affiliates (+25%).
In addition to Disney, other distributors recorded double-digit viewing increases in September, including Fox (+18%) and Amazon (+13%). Like Disney, Fox also exhibited a considerable bump in viewing to its broadcast affiliates and was up 69 percent compared to August. Overall, Fox’s share of television viewing climbed to 7.3% (+1.3 share points) in September, and Amazon finished with 3.7% of TV (+0.5 points), a new high-water mark for the streaming distributor.
Ultimately, as viewers shifted their focus to football in September, eight of the 14 reported media companies experienced viewing decreases this month, including NBCU. Despite falling 4.1 share points in the wake of a record-breaking August powered by the Olympics, NBCU would have likely exhibited growth similar to the aforementioned distributors. It still managed to finish in the top three, though, and came in behind YouTube with 9.3 percent of TV, Nielsen reported.
The measurement month of September included five weeks: Aug. 26 through Sept. 29, 2024. Nielsen measurement weeks run Monday through Sunday.
