Focusing on the Streamers in Nielsen's July The Gauge

What if the pot of gold at the end of the streaming rainbow only covers Netflix and YouTube?

The pie chart above is from Nielsen’s July “The Gauge” report.

Below is more granular The Gauge data for July via a kind source that focuses on streaming services.

I’m the sort of guy who would just scroll scroll down to see it, so won’t blame you if you do that, but some of the explanations and disclaimers (particularly about what’s counted and what isn’t) are important.

The share percentages are the share of the total The Gauge pie, which also includes broadcast and cable.

The Gauge data is only for the United States.

The Gauge data for streaming currently includes SmartTV and connected devices and some usage via set top box apps if it’s a streaming original or exclusive streaming content (and has been watermarked thusly).

The Gauge data does NOT currently include mobile phone usage for the streaming services. I’m told it’s coming, and when it does, my prediction is it will benefit YouTube much more than anyone else in the list below (including Netflix).

It also doesn't include any desktop computer for the streaming services yet.

The Gauge data strips out the vMPVDs (virtual multichannel video programming distributors: YouTube TV, Sling, Fubo TV, etc) from its global streaming percentage in the pie chart above. I think that’s the right thing to do since it’s already counted in the broadcast & cable slices of the pie chart. But…

…I’m told there is still some double counting! If you subscribe to Max (HBO) via Amazon Prime Video channels and watch through Amazon Prime Video it counts both for Max AND Amazon. It’s not a perfect world. At least if you want to know what YouTube’s share would be if you added back in YouTube TV, you can now figure it out.

Nielsen months don’t line up perfectly with the calendar, and the measurement period here was June 26 through July 30 (35 days).

AMA = average minute audience, as noted above, Share is the share of the full The Gauge pie chart at the top of this page, and Total Hours is the total hours of consumption.

The “other” bucket is still pretty sizable (#3 overall, in this ranking).

If I have it right about how Nielsen is counting Charter/Spectrum as a vMPVD, Spectrum being bigger than YouTube TV is pretty notable. Update: Spectrum, Comcast, etc are treated as vMPVDs as far as The Gauge is concerned (they are stripped out of the global streaming share and allocated to the broadcast and cable slices of the pie), but Spectrum being bigger than YouTube TV is not that notable because it includes usage of Spectrums’s app from both Spectrum’s streaming-only offering and its traditional cable offering.

ESPN streaming being DFL in this ranking is notable, and particularly interesting in light of the parlor game that is “When will ESPN go DTC?” Note: this includes any streaming of regular ESPN networks (for those authenticating with pay TV credentials) AND ESPN+. Lots of cries on the service formerly known as Twitter about it being summer. OK, but even if it’s 5X July in October, it will still be pretty tiny, though at least it wouldn’t be DFL!

Messi’s first two Inter Miami games are included in the measurement period for Apple TV+. While that’s 20% higher than Apple’s consumption in May (I don’t have June data handy), the May measurement period was only for 28 days and the July period was for 35 and 35 is 25% bigger than 28. You can’t read two much into that. Sadly, there are no event specific measurements for live events, but a source looked at the aggregate time period consumption for the whole platform and Messi’s first game didn’t move the needle, but his second game on 7/25 moved aggregate platform consumption a LOT (+75% vs the previous Tuesday).

As Mike Mulvihill noted on Twitter, Tubi was indeed bigger than Max. It also had a commanding lead for the month over Pluto TV.