NEW YORK—NBCUniversal took a commanding lead in TV watch-time among media companies in the August 2024 Media Distributor Gauge report, Nielsen’s monthly view of total television consumption by media company.
On the strength of its presentation of the Paris Olympics, NBCU added 3.9 share points to garner a 13.4% share of TV usage in August. That set a personal-best for the company and a new record for the largest share of TV consumption by a single media company since November 2023 when Nielsen began ranking media companies by their share of total TV viewing.
The report also noted that NBCU’s recorded double-digit viewership growth across the three main channels that televised Olympics coverage: USA Network viewership jumped 47%, Peacock streaming was up 39%, and viewing across NBC broadcast affiliates rose 62%.
Additionally, the Democratic National Convention also provided a boost for NBCU in August, as MSNBC’s coverage of the four-day DNC event lifted network viewership by 43% compared to July levels.
In addition to NBCU, two more companies in the Media Distributor Gauge expanded their share of total TV viewing in August.
After topping all media distributors in July, YouTube’s watch-time was up 2% in August to finish the month with 10.6% share of TV—another high-water mark for the streaming platform.
The other company to record growth was The Roku Channel, which received a 3% bump in viewership and added one-tenth of a share point for a total of 1.7% of TV usage, the highest share it has recorded.
With new seasons of football and broadcast programming on the horizon, Disney, Paramount and Fox all experienced the end-of-summer lull in viewership in August, and finished with 9.5%, 7.1% and 6.0%, respectively.
Nielsen’s researchers also noted that during the Games, NBCU established a successful blueprint for reaching consumers on their viewing platform of choice, which could prove to be an important milestone into the future.
The measurement month of August 2024 included four weeks: 07/29/2024 through 08/25/2024. Nielsen measurement weeks run Monday through Sunday.
The Gauge is Nielsen’s monthly snapshot of total broadcast, cable and streaming consumption that occurs through a television screen, providing the industry with a holistic look at what audiences are watching. The Gauge was expanded in April 2024 to include The Media Distributor Gauge, which reflects total viewing by media distributor across these categories.
