School-Aged Viewers Push YouTube Ahead of Disney in Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge for the First Time

YouTube has pulled ahead of the Walt Disney Company to claim the top spot in Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge for July.

Time spent watching YouTube was up 7% compared to June, resulting in a record total share of 10.4% of TV usage. The increase was driven largely by seasonality and school-aged viewers (P2-17) who accounted for nearly 30% of YouTube viewership for July, and 13% of TV viewership overall — the largest usage total for that age demographic since July 2023.

In comparison, the House of Mouse’s share slipped to 9.9%, a 0.9 decline from June. However, year-to-date totals show that Disney leads all media distributors with 11% of TV viewing through seven months, followed by YouTube at 9.6% and NBCU at 9.1%.

The milestone, which comes four months after the measurement firm launched the new tracker in April, is the first time a streaming platform has ranked first in the Media Distributor Gauge and the first time a streamer has exceeded 10% of total TV usage in a given month.

In addition to an increase in viewing from children, TV viewing in July was also boosted by the Summer Olympics and the Republication National Convention.

NBCUniversal’s shares of TV climbed to 9.5% in July from 8.5% in June, with viewership across all of the company’s distribution channels up 14%, driven by a 33% increase for Peacock and a 24% increase across broadcast affiliates. Plus, the July report only includes three days of Olympics coverage. The company also pulled ahead of Netflix, which ranked fourth for the month of July with a share of 8.4%.

Fox rounded out the Top 5 with a total share of 7.4%, with Fox News Channel seeing a 39% bump in viewing and Tubi seeing 6% growth compared to June, helping to drive an overall 16% increase. Fox’s figure, which ties with Paramount, marks its largest share of TV so far this year.

The remainder of the July rankings included Warner Bros. Discovery at 7.2%, Amazon at 3.5%, Scripps at 2.2%, The Roku Channel at 1.6%, Weigel Broadcasting at 1.4%, A+E Networks and Hallmark at 1.2% and AMC Networks at 1%.

Overall, the streaming category accounted for a record 41.4% of TV viewing in July, shattering its previous record set last month. TV usage for the month grew 2.3% month over month and 3.5% year over year.

July was a notable month for streaming with 10 titles exceeding 1 billion viewing minutes for the first time ever. The month now holds four of the Top 10 most streamed days on record.

Meanwhile, broadcast viewing accounted for 20.3% of TV viewing, a slight month-over-month increase but up 5% year over year, while cable made up 26.7%, even compared to June.

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