NEW YORK—Heavy viewing during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays helped increase overall viewing by 4% month-over-month in December, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge report. That report, which covered the period of Nov. 25 through Dec. 29, also boosted YouTube, Netflix and Prime Video to record viewing levels.
On top of a 7.6% increase in November, streaming viewership climbed another 9% in December and the category secured a new Gauge record with 43.4% of total TV watch time. In addition, YouTube, Netflix and Prime Video all hit record viewing levels.
In contrast, broadcast viewing accounted for 22.4% of total TV viewing while cable held a 23.8% of December TV watch time for a combined share of 46.2% of TV viewing.
Nielsen’s The Gauge reported Thanksgiving and Christmas accounted for two of the four days in the interval to exceed 100 billion TV viewing minutes. In total, 2024 included nine days with more than 100 billion TV viewing minutes, compared with 13 in 2023.
Thanksgiving and Christmas Day also hosted the six most-watched telecasts of the month. These included the three Thanksgiving NFL games, led by Giants-Cowboys on Fox with 38.5 million viewers, followed at No. 4 by NBC’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with 23.8 million viewers. The fifth and sixth top telecasts belonged to Netflix in its NFL debut on Christmas Day, whose two games each drew over 23 million viewers and helped bolster an already strong month for the streamer.
Netflix accounted for 8.5% of total TV viewing in December, tying its platform-best share mark set in July 2023. Netflix notched a 14% increase over the previous interval, and while some of that was attributable to the two NFL games, calculations showed the streamer’s monthly usage would have been up 11% even if contributions from the games were excluded.
Netflix also benefited from its action thriller film “Carry-On,” which generated 5.2 billion viewing minutes from Dec. 13 to 29 and achieved the third-most streamed title of the interval. It also received a boost following the Season 2 premiere of “Squid Game,” which accumulated 4.9 billion viewing minutes in the final week of the interval and also notched the highest weekly total (measured Monday through Sunday) for any streaming title in 2024.
In addition to Netflix, nearly all reported streaming platforms exhibited gains and several achieved platform bests.
YouTube viewing was up 7% to propel the platform to a record 11.1% share of TV usage.
Prime Video reached a platform-best 4.0% share of TV, as it benefited from hosting five NFL “Thursday Night Football” games, including one on Black Friday, during the December interval, as well as from its holiday blockbuster film “Red One,” which racked up 5.6 billion viewing minutes as the month’s top streaming title. Prime Video also saw success from its new original reality series Beast Games starring Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, with over 700 million viewing minutes accumulated across its first three episodes.
Max garnered an 18% monthly viewing increase in December, the largest among all streaming platforms, with upticks driven by its deep library of available shows like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Friends,” as well as newcomer “Dune: Prophecy.”
The broadcast and cable categories were notably football-heavy in December, and each saw monthly increases in sports viewership of 17% and 29%, respectively, due to games across the NFL, various college bowl games, and the first round of the College Football Playoff.
The cable category also received an 18% bump in feature-film viewing (on top of a 14% increase in November). Both categories, though, had to contend with seasonal-related declines: Broadcast networks pulled back on scripted dramas during the holiday season, resulting in an 18% dip in that genre, and cable news, following the end of the presidential election cycle, dropped by 27%.
