NEW YORK—Warner Bros. Discovery captured the largest monthly viewership increase among media distributors in March, according to Nielsen’s latest Media Distributor Gauge report, which breaks down the total TV viewing of content distributed by major media companies.
In the March report, WBD exhibited 3% growth in television viewing compared with February, primarily driven by March Madness coverage on TBS, TNT and truTV. Tournament games were also available to stream on Max, which allowed for additional reach to notably younger consumers.
Max notched the largest month-over-month growth among streaming services in March (up 6%), further contributing to Warner Bros. Discovery’s significant monthly gains, the report explained.
Max’s increased viewing was due in large part to HBO megahit ‘The White Lotus,’ which was No. 4 among most-streamed titles in March with 4.5 billion viewing minutes. The debut season of Max original series ‘The Pitt’ also contributed, generating 2.3 billion viewing minutes across the month and charting in Nielsen’s Streaming Top 10 for the first time during the week of March 17.
YouTube captured 12.0% of overall TV viewing in March to secure a second consecutive month as the top reported media distributor, eclipsing its previous company best share of TV of 11.6%, which it set last month, the researchers noted.
Disney gained half a share point over February to account for 10.5% of TV watch-time in March. Disney benefited from its successful cross-platform simulcast of “The Oscars,” which drew 20.3 million viewers across ABC and Hulu, in addition to the return of “American Idol” and the continued strength of “ABC World News Tonight With David Muir.”
Paramount advanced to No. 3 in the Media Distributor Gauge rankings in March (up from fifth in February) with an 8.5% share of TV (up 0.3 share points). Paramount rode the success of March Madness coverage on CBS, coupled with a robust drama lineup on the network, including “Tracker” and “Matlock,” which drew 10.7 million viewers and 9.2 million viewers, respectively, across the month. “Tracker” episodes represented five of the top 10 broadcast telecasts in March, averaging over 10 million viewers each (on a live-plus-7-day basis).
Despite a 0.1 point decline in viewing share versus February, NBCU climbed from No. 6 to No. 4 in the distributor rankings and finished with 8% of TV viewing in March. Although it did not change from a ranking perspective, The Roku Channel also set a platform record with 2.2% of television viewing, per Nielsen data.
The March interval ran from Feb. 24 to March 30. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar with measurement weeks that run Monday through Sunday.
