Streaming viewership captured 47.5 per cent of US television in December 2025, beating the previous record of 47.3 per cent set in July 2025 to achieve the largest share of TV ever reported in Nielsen’s The Gauge – a snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption across the US.

Streaming dominance in December was anchored by Christmas Day in which streaming usage surged to 55.1 billion viewing minutes, shattering the previous single-day streaming record by 8 per cent (December 25th 2024, 51.2 billion minutes), and marking just the second time in TV history where daily streaming volume exceeded 50 billion minutes.

The mammoth day of streaming viewership was driven by back-to-back NFL games on Netflix, strategically followed by the highly anticipated release of new episodes from the final season of Stranger Things (pictured), in addition to Prime Video’s late NFL game. Combined, Netflix and Prime Video commanded 22.5 per cent of total TV usage across the day. Meanwhile, streaming levels overall on Christmas Day swelled to 54 per cent of daily TV usage, the largest single-day share of TV ever recorded by the category. Streaming’s dominance in December was further evidenced by the fact that the category exceeded 50 per cent of daily TV usage twice, having occurred for the first time ever on December 13th 2025 when streaming represented 50.4 per cent of TV.

Overall streaming usage was up 3 per cent in December versus November, doubling the monthly increase of total TV usage. Four streaming platforms achieved personal bests this month, including:

• Netflix, per cent of TV: Netflix viewership was up 10 per cent month-over-month, with increases largely driven by Stranger Things, which generated over 15 billion viewing minutes and was December’s most-watched streaming title.
• Prime Video, 4.3% of TV: Prime Video surged 12 per cent versus last month and exceeded its previous platform record by 0.3 share points. Prime Video’s increases were driven by four NFL Thursday Night Football games, including a record-setting Christmas Day game, as well as new episodes of its original series Fallout.
• The Roku Channel, 3 per cent of TV: The free ad-supported streamer added 0.1 share point from November to secure an all-time monthly high.
• Paramount Streaming, 2.5 per cent of TV: Led by the 6.2 billion viewing minutes generated by its original series Landman on Paramount+ (December’s No. 2 most-watched streaming title), Paramount Streaming was up 10 per cent versus November to hit a collective 2.5 per cent share of TV (Paramount+ and Pluto).

Across traditional TV, broadcast viewership represented 21.4 per cent of total TV watch-time in December, while cable accounted for 20.2 per cent. CBS and FOX secured the top broadcast programs in December, led by Fox’s Eagles vs Bills NFL matchup on December 28th 2025, followed by the Steelers vs Lions on CBS on December 21st 2025. CBS also owned the top non-sports programmes of the month with Tracker and 60 Minutes, each capturing over 10 million viewers (L+7) and the largest non-sports programme audiences.

Cable sports programming experienced a 16 per cent viewing lift in December to represent 9 per cent of total cable viewing. NFL games represented the top five cable telecasts this month, led by all four of the December interval’s Monday Night Football games on ESPN, followed by the NFL Network’s coverage of the Texans vs Chargers matchup on December 27th 2025.

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

Tags: Christmas, gauge, netflix, NFL, nielsen, Stranger Things