Overall TV usage rose 8% in January compared with December, an uptick driven by a boom in streaming and viewer interest in a gripping series of NFL playoff games.The stats were delivered today by Nielsen in its monthly snapshot of viewing, The Gauge.While January is annually a peak time for all viewing, this year outdid January 2021.
TV usage hit its highest point since May 2020, when most of the country was still hunkering down amid the earliest phase of the coronavirus pandemic, Nielsen said.Streaming had a month-to-month increase of 12%, and gained a percentage point in share of viewing, reaching almost 29%, its highest share ever.
The first week of January became the No. 1 streaming week since Nielsen began tracking the category in mid-2020, with 197.6 billion viewing minutes eclipsing the total for Christmas week in 2021.
Streaming averaged 180 billion minutes on a weekly basis, another record. Notable new titles in early January included Don’t Look Up and Cobra Kai on Netflix and Encanto and The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+.Brian Fuhrer, SVP, Product Strategy at Nielsen noted that there “weren’t a lot of share shifts” among major streaming players.
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