Streaming TV reached a new record high viewership in November
In general, people watched more TV in November than they did most of the year.
Screenshot: Netflix/YouTube
It’s the end of 2024 and apparently, people need television more than ever. According to the latest Nielsen data, November was a high-water mark for television viewership this year, reaching the highest viewership levels since February. Not only that, it was a high-water mark for streaming viewership in general, as streaming earned an all-time record 41.6% share of time spent watching TV for the month. That beats the previous record, set just this past July, of 40.3%.
According to Nielsen, the viewership data “was impacted primarily by sports, the presidential election and live streaming, all of which drove peak shares of TV for viewing categories each in separate weeks this month.” Cable got a boost from election coverage. Streaming got a boost from people trying to escape election coverage. (Netflix in particular hit a peak with the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson livestream and from The Lincoln Lawyer, the most watched streaming program of the month at 3.9 billion minutes viewed.) And broadcast, the little engine that could, was up 3% this month, reaching a peak during the World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees (“in addition to the usual slate of NFL and college football games”).
Within streaming’s 41.6% share of total TV viewership, YouTube continues to lead as the most watched streaming platform. In November YouTube reached a record high of 10.8% of the time spent watching TV. The Roku Channel also posted its best numbers yet with 1.9%, and Prime Video also got its best month at 3.7%. Peacock got just 1.5% of the viewership, but it “drew the largest monthly increase among streamers,” which Nielsen says is “partially due to Despicable Me 4, which drove 1.5 billion viewing minutes and a 58% increase in kids viewing on the platform.”
All in all, a good month for TV, and that doesn’t even account for the entirety of it—because Nielsen’s interval ended on the 24th, “the typical Thanksgiving holiday surge in TV viewing will be included in the December report.” You can check out the full data breakdown here.