Nielsen: streaming makes up 19% of US TV watching, with Netflix comprising 31% of streaming on TVs, followed by 21% on YouTube, 12% on Hulu, and 8% on Amazon
Netflix is big and it's getting bigger. And we're not just watching it on our phones and tablets: That dominance translates …
Context & Ripple Effects
Nielsen's February 2020 snapshot lands midway through a decade-long arc the related coverage traces clearly: back in [[a:827246|2015, Nielsen counted 36% of US households subscribing to Netflix versus 6.5% for Hulu Plus]], and by this report streaming had grown to 19% of all US TV watching — still a minority share, but with Netflix alone claiming 31% of what streams on TVs.
The measurement itself was about to change: a year later Nielsen launched The Gauge, tracking streaming in ~14,000 homes via router-level hardware, which produced the later milestones — streaming overtaking cable and broadcast at 34.8% in July 2022, and linear TV falling below 50% of total use by mid-2023. This 19% figure is the baseline those records are measured against.
First-order effects
- Netflix enters 2020 holding the single largest share of TV streaming (31%) — more than YouTube's 21% and Hulu's 12% combined — making it the default destination on the living-room screen and the reference point advertisers and rivals measure against.
- Hulu's 12% and Amazon's 8% shares show the subscription challengers were still far behind Netflix on TVs, leaving both with a visibility gap on the device that mattered most for household viewing.
Second-order effects
- YouTube's 21% share on TVs — earned without subscriptions — pressures Netflix and Hulu on ad economics, since YouTube could sell TV-sized audiences at scale while the streamers were still leaning on subscription revenue.
- As streaming's share climbs toward the levels later recorded in 2022 and 2023, pay-TV distributors and broadcast networks face accelerating subscriber erosion, forcing bundling and carriage repricing across the ecosystem.
Third-order effects
- The trajectory from 19% here to streaming's 34.8% plurality and linear's sub-50% share by 2023 points to a structural inversion: TV becomes an app-driven, internet-measured medium, with Nielsen's Gauge-style router tracking replacing panel-based ratings as the currency.
- The 2024 data showing YouTube at roughly 10% of all US TV viewership, ahead of Netflix's 7.6% suggests the endgame of this pattern is not one streaming winner but a contest between subscription services and free, ad-supported platforms for the same screen.
The trend: US television viewing is migrating from linear channels to app-based streaming, with Nielsen's measurement evolving from household surveys to router-level tracking to keep pace.