Gains at Tubi Help Raise Fox’s Share of TV Viewing Among Media Companies
Nielsen’s new report shows Roku Channel jumping into 10th place
Fox got a boost from its Tubi streaming unit and its share of total TV usage among media companies rose in May, according to new monthly figures from Nielsen.
The Walt Disney Co. remained at the top of Nielsen’s ranking of the 13th biggest media distributors, followed again by YouTube and NBCUniversal.
The only change in the rankings came as Roku Channel hopped over Weigel Broadcasting into 10th place on the list, with a 1.5% share.
Nielsen released its first monthly report on media distributors last month. The new measure is designed to provide a different perspective than the ratings company’s other monthly report, which compares the share of television usage of broadcast, cable and streaming, including a breakdown of the top streamers.
Nielsen said the new report removes the siloes of traditional television versus streaming and puts all content distributors on a level playing field to allow given how TV is being watched today.
In May, Disney’s share of television usage was 11.4% down from 11.5% in April. YouTube’s share rose to 9.7% from 9.6% the prior month.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal had a 9% share, up from 8.9%; Paramount Global had an 8.8% share, unchanged; Warner Bros. Discovery had 8.1%, unchanged, and Netflix garnered 7.5%.down from 7.6%
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No. 7 Fox’s share jumped to 6.4% from 6.1%. Nielsen said Fox’s growth was amplified by a nearly 5% monthly viewing increase from its free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) platform Tubi TV, and a 1.6% monthly increase from Fox News Channel.
Amazon, now including Twitch, had a 3.1%, down from 3.2% and the E.W. Scripps Co. got 2.3% of viewing, unchanged from April..
The Roku Channel had a 1.5% share, up from 1.4%, moving it ahead of Weigel Broadcasting, which also had a 1.5% share, unchanged.
Rounding out the list were A+E Networks, with a 1.2% share, down from 1.3%; Hallmark Media at 1.1%, down from 1.2%; and AMC Networks with a 1% share, down from 1.1%.
Nielsen said it made some changes since releasing the first list last month with some entities added and mapped to the appropriate distributor, specifically NBA-TV and Hogar de HGTV have been mapped to Warner Brothers Discovery, and Twitch has been mapped to Amazon. The addition of these entities to their respective distributors would not have changed the share or ranking of WBD or Amazon in April, but did impact each distributor by an increase of 0.1 share point in May.
Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.