With Olympics and ‘Love Island’ Boosts, Peacock Viewership Increased 33% in July
Peacock attracted 33% more viewership in July than in June, per Nielsen, thanks largely to the beginning of the 2024 Paris Olympics as well as Season 6 of “Love Island USA.”
According to The Gauge, a monthly Nielsen report, Peacock accounted for 1.5% of all TV viewership in July. That’s a solid increase from the month before, when the NBCUniversal-owned streamer came in with a 1.2% share, and marks its second-best share ever after the 1.6% it achieved in January of this year. And on broadcast, NBC’s airing of the Olympics accounted for all of the top five and seven of the top 10 telecasts of the month, led by an average 19 million viewers on July 28.
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These bumps coincides with overall increases in streaming viewership, with July setting records for the four biggest streaming weeks ever measured by Nielsen. Streaming made up 41.4% of all TV viewing compared to 40.3% the month before, and in TV usage, which was up 2.3%. Broadcast share decreased slightly from 20.5% to 20.3%, but came in 5% higher than it was July 2023, and isolated week-by-week, the Olympics boosted broadcast viewership to 22% of all TV usage during the final week of July.
Only three days of Olympics coverage are accounted for in The Gauge, indicating that August will likely build on these trends.
Peacock was the streamer with the largest growth in July, followed by Amazon Prime Video with a 12% bump, which made up 3.4% of TV usage. Amazon owes its growth to “The Boys,” which was the No. 3 most-streamed program of the month with 4.2 billion viewing minutes behind “House of the Dragon” with 4.7 billion minutes on Max and “Bluey” with 4.3 billion minutes on Disney+. Separately, YouTube became the first streaming platform to pass 10% of all TV usage.
Cable viewership in July remained about even with June, though its overall share decreased from 27.2% to 26.7% due to the broadcast and streaming increases. The Republican National Convention accounted for much of the category’s viewership, with cable news in particular growing by 23% compared to June and 52% compared to July of last year. Fox News Channel’s RNC coverage accounted for 24 of the top 25 cable telecasts of the month.
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