Ad-supported broadcast TV viewership increased 0.6% year over year to 26.6% during the second quarter of 2026, stabilized by sports programming such as the NBA playoffs and the FIFA World Cup.
While the category experienced a seasonal decline of 1.6 share points from the first quarter, it was softer than the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, streaming climbed 1.6 share points to 48.2% of ad-supported TV viewing, while cable held steady at 25.2%.
When focusing solely on viewers ages 18 and older, streaming fell 3.8 share points to 44.4%, while broadcast was boosted 2 share points to 28.6% and cable climbed 1.8 points to 27%.
Overall, ad-supported TV captured a viewership share of 71.5% during the second quarter of 2026, a 1.3 share point decline from the first quarter, while non-ad supported TV made up the remaining 28.5%, up slightly from 27.2% in the previous quarter.
The latest update on ad-supported viewership comes as the World Cup and NBA Finals lifted total broadcast viewership to an overall share of 19.8% in June — its first increase during the period since the launch of Nielsen’s Gauge report in 2021 — with Fox and NBCUniversal/Versant being the biggest beneficiaries of the coverage.
Meanwhile, cable saw a 2% decrease in viewing to a total share of 19.5%, driven by the absence of the NBA and NHL playoffs, which led to a 10% monthly decline in cable sports viewership. As for streaming, the category made up 48.5% of TV viewing in June, up about 3% compared to May but just below the 3.1% increase for total TV usage.
Despite Fox and NBCU’s gains during the month, YouTube and Disney continued to lead the distributor ranking, finishing the month at 13.8% and 9.6% of TV viewership, respectively.
NBCU and Versant finished third with a combined 9.1% share of TV viewing for the month, with the former accounting for 7% and the latter accounting for 2.1% of the total. Fox, which reported a TV viewership share of 7.4% in June, also remains behind Netflix, which came in fourth in the ranking by distributor and second in the ranking by streaming platform with a share of 7.9%.
Rounding out the rest of the list was Paramount with 6.8% of viewing, Warner Bros. Discovery with 5.3%, Amazon with 4.3%, The Roku Channel with 3%, Scripps with 1.6%, Wiegel Broadcasting with 1.4%, A&E Networks with 0.9%, Hallmark with 0.8% and AMC Networks with 0.6%.
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