viewing

Summer TV broadcast viewing patterns continue to follow that of recent live, linear television trends overall — registering double-digit percentage declines in viewing, with national TV spend also sinking. After nearly two months, season-to-date viewership dropped 25% to average 1.81 million viewers per summer prime-time episode, according to Nielsen’s live program-plus-seven days of time-shifted video-on-demand metric for May 25-Aug. 13.

Streaming grabbed a record 37.7% share of television usage in June as Paramount’s Paramount Plus reached the 1% share mark for the first time, Nielsen said. Total TV usage registered its first month-over-month increase since January, driven by an increase among youngsters in the 2-to-17 age group. According to Nielsen, streaming and game console usage generated 90% of young people’s increased TV usage in June. Broadcast fell to its lowest share on record at 20.8%. Broadcast usage was down 6.6%, dropping its share by 2 points from last month. Pictured: S.W.A.T. was the most watched streaming show in June.

The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), a division of the Advertising Research Foundation, this morning said it is launching new research to “better understand how time is spent across every platform available on TVs today.” The initiative, dubbed the “Passive TV Measurement Study,” will explicitly look at how American consumers spend time with linear TV as well as OTT (over-the-top internet-connected) devices, smart TV apps and video game consoles.

After eight months of the COVID-19 pandemic, daytime TV viewing has become a “second primetime,” according to Nielsen, due to the continuing growth of kids viewing and at-home workers’ TV and internet consumption.