In a record month for streaming, it’s not a big surprise that the two biggest platforms took high places in among media distributors in June.
What is notable, however, is just how high: Netflix ranked fourth among all media companies in share of TV use in the United States, its best mark to date in the three published Nielsen Media Distributor Gauges — and several months of data before that. YouTube, meanwhile, has ranked second since April but came closer to the lead spot (held by Disney) than it ever has.
With Bridgerton ranking as the most-watched streaming show of June and a surge in interest for library series Your Honor, Netflix gathered 8.4 percent of all TV viewing for the month. That moved it ahead of the fourth- and fifth-place distributors from May, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, and just a tenth of a point behind NBCUniversal (8.5 percent). Paramount had 7.9 percent of TV usage in June and Warner Bros. Discovery, 7.4 percent.
Disney remained the top distributor in June — as it has for every month that Nielsen has collected this data — with 10.8 percent of all TV use across all of its outlets, including Disney+, Hulu, ESPN and ABC. YouTube grabbed 9.9 percent of usage, its best showing ever in Nielsen’s longer-running Gauge platform rankings and within one percentage point of Disney.
As with previous months, 14 media companies got above the 1 percent threshold for inclusion in the distributor rankings. The others are Fox (6.6 percent), Amazon (3.2 percent), Scripps (2.2 percent), Roku Channel (1.5 percent), Wiegel Broadcasting (1.4 percent), A+E Networks (1.4 percent), Hallmark (1.2 percent) and AMC Networks (1.1 percent). Collectively, the 14 companies accounted for 71.5 percent of all TV use in the United States in June, down slightly from an average of about 72.7 percent the previous two months.
Nielsen’s distributor rankings for June are below.