TV usage is seeing its first boost this year, thanks to the increased leisure time of younger audiences enjoying their summer break from school. 

The latest edition of The Gauge—Nielsen’s monthly measurement of broadcast, cable and streaming consumption in the US—was released today, and it underlines how kids and teens helped to drive up overall TV usage by 2.2% in June 2023.

Digging a little deeper into the data, streaming was up by 5.8% from the previous month, with nearly half of this growth driven by kids and teens. Streaming accounted for 37.7% of overall TV usage in June, ahead of both cable (30.6%) and broadcast (20.8%). And according to Nielsen, the latest monthly numbers represent a record-high for streaming’s share of TV usage since the company first began measuring this type of viewing in July 2021. 

Breaking things down by age group, two- to 11-year-olds watched 16.3% more TV overall in June, and the uptick was even sharper for the 12 to 17 demo at 24.1%. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, broadcast and cable did not play a prominent role in these increases. Less traditional options like streaming and video gaming accounted for 90% of the extra TV time logged by both age groups. For two to 11s, the increased usage was largely split between streaming (62%) and “other” (30%), a category that includes video game consoles. For tweens/teens, this breakdown was more even at 43% for streaming and 46% for “other”.

Among streaming platforms, YouTube is the number-one place where people watch content, accounting for 8.8% of total TV usage. Netflix was close behind at 8.2%, and Disney+ saw a significant kid-driven boost (with overall usage growing by almost 12%) to corner its 2% share. Tubi TV emerged as the most-used FAST service, accounting for 1.4% of total TV usage and tying with WBD’s streamer Max.

Image courtesy of Marques Kaspbrak via Unsplash