How Huge Was YouTube in July? It Surpassed the Entire Disney Portfolio in TV Usage
The Disney TV and streaming offices may not be the happiest place on Earth this morning.
According to Nielsen’s latest calculations, YouTube accounted for 10.4 percent of all TV usage in July 2024. It surpassed reigning champion Disney, which fell from 10.8 percent in June 2024 to 9.9 percent in July.
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With the door open, YouTube became the first streaming service ever to finish first; believe it or not, Netflix still has a long way to go to catch up.
For an explanation, look no further than your own child’s tablet. With school out for the summer, nearly 30 percent of July’s YouTube viewership came from kids aged 2 to 17. The same group accounted for 13 percent of TV viewership overall. Fellow parents, we all need to chill on screen time.
Disney still leads 2024 overall with 11 percent of total TV viewing through seven recorded months.
School isn’t the only thing out of session for the summer months. With exceptions (especially in the reality TV space), studio programming tends to take a vacation in July and August. Why watch “Abbott Elementary” reruns when Blippi is still posting fresh content? (Bad example: we still highly recommend the repeats in this case.)
Another thing to note is that Nielsen’s “July” is not all of July. Since the ratings-currency company calculates viewership on a weekly — not monthly — basis, its “July” captured July 1 to 28, 2024 and not the 29th, 30th, and 31st. That may sound nitpick-y to you, but it definitely does not to the third-place media company NBCUniversal.
Nielsen’s July counted only three days of NBCU’s Paris Olympics, which dominated the final six days of real July. The events of July 29 to 31 will not be realized until Nielsen’s August report; we may crown yet another new champion then.
With just three days of Paris Olympics coverage counted toward July, NBCUniversal’s share of TV usage jumped an entire percentage point from June. “TV usage” here includes streaming, which accounted for 41.4 percent of all TV viewing in the month, according to earlier Nielsen data.
Though missing the gold, silver, and bronze medals here, you cannot talk streaming without talking Netflix.
Netflix (an 8.4 percent share) finished fourth in July, when the race for fifth was particularly tight. In unrounded data provided to IndieWire by Nielsen, Fox (7.44 percent) edged Paramount (7.36 percent) to make the top 5. The Fox News Channel-friendly Republican National Convention (July 15-18) can be thanked for that.
Below is a full look at the media-distributor rankings for July 2024; a company must hit the 1 percent threshold to make Nielsen’s chart.
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