Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, has found that sports programme offerings in 2025 across the top five SVoD services (Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+) in the US increased by 52 per cent year-over-year (YoY).

This sharp increase, identified in the latest Gracenote Data Hub update, underscores the importance of sports content (live games + related content) to providers’ audience engagement strategies.

Paramount+ emerges as SVOD’s top sports destination in US

Over the past year, Paramount+ has overtaken Prime Video and Netflix to lead in streaming sports programming in the US at the individual game and event level. Following its acquisition of UFC broadcast rights from ESPN, which kicked off in January, the service now delivers more than twice the sports content of any SVoD platform, up 219 per cent YoY. During the same period, the Disney+ sports catalogue contracted 23 per cent.

FAST channels proliferate, led by news and sports

Streaming content growth has extended beyond subscription platforms to no-cost, no-commitment services. Gracenote’s analysis of 2,060 FAST channels available worldwide revealed that sports content on FAST grew 30 per cent YoY. With more than 200 dedicated news channels now available, news programming on free ad-supported streaming services increased 58 per cent. Movies and TV shows available on FAST rose 26 per cent and 24 per cent YoY respectively.

Further data highlights include:

Content up by one-fifth on leading five SVoD services

● The total catalogue growth of Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+ has increased by 20 per cent year-over-year.

● There are 20 per cent more TV shows, 21 per cent more movies and 12.5 per cent more sports shows across these services than there were in January 2025.

The percentage of US produced programming continues to decline

● US made shows and movies represent a smaller proportion of the catalogues of the five leading services. Currently 41.9 per cent of what is available was made in the US, down from 44.7 per cent a year ago. The volume of US made content has still increased, just not to the extent that others have.

● The percentage of Japanese content has more than doubled on these services from 3 per cent of programming in January 2025 to 6.1 per cent a year later.

● The volume of Japanese content on these services has increased by 146 per cent, to 6,578 different titles. The largest increase of Japanese shows and movies is on Prime Video, which now has 6.1 per cent of its content from Japan, compared with 2.2 per cent a year ago.

● Japan is now the fourth-biggest production country on Prime Video (up from 10th a year ago), after the US, Great Britain and India.

News shows increasing on FAST, music in decline

● There is 58 per cent more news programming on FAST than there was a year ago.

● The proportion of FAST programming taken up by news has increased from 8.1 per cent to 10.8 per cent in the past year – an increase of 33 per cent.

● News is now the third most prevalent genre of FAST programming after Documentary and Drama, up from fourth a year ago.

● There has been a 18 per cent drop in the proportion of FAST shows with the genre Music.

● Music was the fifth biggest genre on FAST a year ago, making up 6.8 per cent of schedules. This has dropped to 5.5 per cent making music the seventh-biggest genre.

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Categories: Articles, Content, Premium, Research, VOD

Tags: Gracenote, nielsen, paramount, Prime Video, ufc