Disney Narrowed the Viewership Gap with YouTube During January’s Football Excitement, According to Nielsen
In January, college and NFL football contributed to Disney capturing 11.9% of total U.S. television viewership, according to Nielsen’s latest Media Distributor Gauge report.
YouTube maintained its position at the top with 12.5% of total viewership. Meanwhile, Netflix showed a slight increase of 1% from December, securing the third position with 8.8%, bolstered by its popular series, Stranger Things.
The College Football Playoff, which expanded last year from four to twelve teams, predominantly aired on ABC and ESPN. The championship game attracted an average audience of 30.1 million viewers. Sports drove linear TV viewing to a 12-month high in January, with ESPN experiencing an impressive 82% increase in viewership. This year’s CFP included a noteworthy run from Indiana, a team with a diverse but underrepresented fan base.
Disney’s share increased by 1.2 points over December, marking the largest monthly gain for any distributor since Nielsen began tracking data in 2024.
Watch on Deadline
In addition to ESPN’s surge, Disney’s ABC affiliates recorded a 10% rise in viewership compared to the previous month, aided by NFL games, returning broadcast dramas, and events such as New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and The Rose Bowl Parade.
However, traditional networks face challenges in maintaining consistent viewership. While certain programs provided temporary boosts, YouTube continues to deliver stable viewership between 12% and 13%. The platform’s strength lies in a diverse array of regularly viewed channels. Last December, YouTube reported that its video podcasts accrued 700 million hours of viewing, significantly up from 400 million in 2024. (Nielsen’s measurements track viewership only through TV sets, excluding mobile devices.)
NBCUniversal and Versant, collectively reported an increase of 5% in market share, reaching 8.5%. This growth has been credited to sports programming and the new season of unscripted hit The Traitors. Affiliates of Spanish-language NBCU network Telemundo saw a 13% jump in viewership, largely driven by the sports reality program Exatlón, contributing 0.7 share points to NBCU-Versant’s total.
Nielsen’s January measurement period encompassed four weeks, from December 29 to January 25.
Here is the full January chart:
