Two milestones reveal this week the decreasing power of broadcast television in the media world – one fed by the customs of young people and the other by their elderly people.
In June, viewers spent more time watching streaming services than combined for temporary employment and cable television. That happened for the first time ever in May, with a fraction of one percentage point, but the Nielsen company said on Tuesday that the gap was considerably larger in June.
Nielsen also said for the third consecutive week that Fox News Channel had more viewers in prime time on weekly nights than the most important broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox Entertainment.
For years, the mantra of media executives that Streaming represented the future for entertainment at home. Now that future has arrived clearly.
TV broadcast broadcast under 20% of the total
In June, 46% of the TV time of Americans were spent on streaming services, led by YouTube and Netflix. Cable television networks represented 23.4%and broadcast was 18.5%, for a total of slightly less than 42%, Nielsen said. It was the first time that the TV broadcast ever had slipped below 20% of the total TV vision.
“It felt a bit like the right moment,” said Brian Fuhrer, senior vice president of Nielsen for product strategy and leadership of thinking. “Many people thought it would happen faster.”
The driving force in June was school for young people, which means that they had more time to watch TV, where Netflix series such as “Ginny & Georgia” and “Squid Game” were big hits. About two -thirds of people from 6 to 17 years old watched streaming for conventional TV, Nielsen said.
In June 2024 the figures were roughly reversed – 47.7% of people watched conventional TV in an average minute, with 40.3% logged in to a streaming service.
Although the direction is clear, it is not a death bell for conventional TV. June and July are fallow months, and their view will increase when the football season starts and the original episodes of comedies and dramas return, Fuhrer said.
Content is spread over more platforms
It is also not a strict or or situation; Media companies do better to spread their content on different platforms to give viewers a choice, he said. The growth of YouTube, where many consumers have free access and is a portal for “traditional” TV, has also fueled streaming services.
FOX News has occasionally overshadowed the broadcast networks in viewers, but last week the seventh week represented that it did this in 2025, already combined more than 2024 and 2023. The average 2.4 million viewers in prime time on weekly nights last week, said Nielsen.
Fox News also benefits from what traditionally the least viewed time of year is for employment networks, when summer evenings and barbecues keep people out. The difference this year is that it won a few weeks outside the summer during the inauguration week of President Donald Trump in January, for example.
The audience – under the oldest of all television networks – remains quite stable all year round.
David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow it at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social
—David Bauder, AP Media Writer
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