Peacock attracted 33% more viewers in July than in June, according to Nielsen, thanks in large part to the start of the 2024 Olympics in Paris and Season 6 of “Love Island USA.”
According to The Gauge, a monthly report from Nielsen, Peacock accounted for 1.5% of all TV viewers in July. That’s a solid increase from the previous month, when the NBCUniversal-owned streamer came in with a 1.2% share, marking its second-best share ever after the 1.6% it gained in January from achieved this year. And during the broadcast, NBC’s broadcast of the Olympics accounted for all of the top five and seven of the top ten telecasts for the month, averaging 19 million viewers on July 28.
These increases coincide with the overall increase in streaming viewership, with July setting records for the four largest streaming weeks ever recorded by Nielsen. Streaming accounted for 41.4% of all TV viewing, up from 40.3% the month before, and TV usage rose 2.3%. The broadcast share fell slightly from 20.5% to 20.3%, but ended up 5% higher than in July 2023, and isolated from week to week the Olympics increased viewership to 22% of all TV usage in the last week of July.
Only three days of Olympics coverage are reported in The Gauge, indicating that August will likely build on these trends.
Peacock was the streamer with the biggest growth in July, followed by Amazon Prime Video with a 12% increase, accounting for 3.4% of TV usage. Amazon credits its growth to “The Boys,” the third most streamed show of the month with 4.2 billion minutes watched behind “House of the Dragon” with 4.7 billion minutes on Max and “Bluey” with 4.3 billion minutes on Disney+. In addition, YouTube became the first streaming platform to account for 10% of all TV usage.
Cable viewership in July remained about the same as in June, although the overall share fell from 27.2% to 26.7% due to the increase in broadcasting and streaming. The Republican National Convention accounted for a large portion of the category’s viewership, with cable news in particular growing 23% compared to June and 52% compared to July last year. Fox News Channel’s RNC coverage accounted for 24 of the top 25 cable broadcasts of the month.