The start of a new school year and the return of American college football collided in August to disrupt summer TV trends, signaled by gains for broadcast and cable for the first time since April, according to Nielsen’s monthly The Gauge report – a snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption in the US.

Broadcast and cable combined to add a full share point over July, representing 19.1 per cent and 22.5 per cent of TV, respectively, and ending a three months-long decline for traditional TV.

Broadcast notched its largest share of TV since May as viewership climbed 1.1 per cent on a monthly basis. Across the five-week measurement interval, the peak in broadcast viewership occurred during the final week of August, coinciding with the official return of college football. Fox’s first Big Noon Saturday game of the season between Ohio State and Texas on August 30th drew the largest telecast audience with over 16.6 million viewers. ABC owned the next three top telecasts with college football games that each drew over 10 million viewers, including Notre Dame vs Miami, Alabama vs Florida State, and LSU vs Clemson.

Cable viewing represented 22.5 per cent of TV watch-time in August, gaining 0.3 share points versus July. Akin to broadcast, cable viewing was strongest in the final week of the interval, primarily among 18-49 year-olds. This peak was also driven by college football coverage, specifically on ESPN. Moreover, cable sports viewing in August was up 30 per cent compared to the prior month, and represented over 9 per cent of all cable viewership.

Time spent streaming declined over 4 per cent in August compared to July and represented 46.4 per cent of TV (-0.9 points). Although monthly viewing levels were down for each streaming platform in The Gauge in August, one streamer managed to gain share: Prime Video added 0.1 point and finished the month with 3.9 per cent of TV – its best so far in 2025, and just shy of its platform record (4 per cent) set in December 2024. Prime Video benefited from two of its original series, The Summer I Turned Pretty and Ballard, in addition to an NFL preseason game on August 21st.

Netflix accounted for 8.7 per cent of TV watch-time in August (-0.1 point vs. July), and continued to dominate the top streaming titles: Netflix originals Wednesday, KPop Demon Hunters and The Hunting Wives, plus acquired series Sullivan’s Crossing, took the top four slots and combined for over 22 billion viewing minutes across the five weeks of the interval.

Coming out of several consecutive streaming-heavy months, the decrease in viewing from younger audiences caused by back-to-school variables tends to have a larger impact on overall viewing trends, notes Nielsen. Time spent watching TV was down 2 per cent overall in August versus July, but viewing among kids and teens (age 6-17) was down 9 per cent over the same period. Additionally, when isolating watch-time by week among this age group, viewing levels between the first and last weeks of the interval dropped 21 per cent. Streaming usage among school-aged viewers also exhibited similar declines, dropping 8 per cent on a monthly basis in August, and losing 22 per cent from the first week versus the last week of the month.

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Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Consumer Behaviour, Content, Research, VOD

Tags: netflix, NFL, nielsen, Prime Video, wednesday