How Netflix and Streamers Reached Record Ratings in December

Streamers had a festive vacation season stuffed with soccer and blockbusters.

In response to Nielsen rankings from its Gauge December 2024 report (which accounts for viewership from Nov. 25 via Dec. 29), TV viewing was up 4% month over month, with streamers gaining an enormous share of viewers time.

Linear nonetheless outperformed streaming when it comes to particular person broadcasts, with Fox’s Thanksgiving recreation between the Giants vs. Cowboys attracting 38.5 million viewers; nevertheless, a number of streamers reached (or have been close to) report highs. Together with a 7.6% increase in November, streaming viewership rose one other 9% in December, and the class secured a brand new report with 43.4% of whole TV watch time.

Netflix was an enormous winner, with the fifth and sixth prime telecasts of the month because of its NFL Christmas Day video games, each of which earned over 23 million viewers. The streamer accounted for 8.5% of whole TV viewing final month, which tied its platform-best share, which was set in July 2023. With the assistance of the Christmas Day video games, Netflix had a 14% month-over-month enhance.

Talking forward of Netflix’s earnings on Tuesday, Mike Proulx, Forrester vp, analysis director, make clear the streamer’s robust This fall.

“Netflix has quite a bit to tout coming off a This fall with a variety of key milestones that by no coincidence all contain sports activities,” Proulx stated, including that the corporate will possible promote “much more reside programming occasions over the course of 2025.”

In response to the Gauge, calculations confirmed the streaming service’s month-to-month utilization would have been up 11% even when contributions from the video games weren’t included. Netflix noticed a lift from its motion thriller movie Carry-On starring Taron Egerton, which generated 5.2 billion viewing minutes from the Dec. 13 via Dec. 29 interval and have become the third-most streamed title throughout that point. Squid Recreation Season 2 additionally accounted for 4.9 billion viewing minutes within the remaining week of the interval, the very best weekly whole for any streaming title final yr.

Moreover, practically all reported streaming platforms exhibited beneficial properties. YouTube was up 9%, pushing the platform to a report 11.1% share of TV utilization. In the meantime, Prime Video reached a platform-best 4.0% share of TV because it hosted 5 NFL Thursday Evening Soccer video games, together with one on Black Friday in the course of the December interval. The platform additionally had a lift from blockbuster flick Purple One, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Chris Evans, and unique actuality collection Beast Video games, starring standard YouTube creator Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, which had 700 million viewing minutes throughout its first three episodes.