Super Bowl Sunday ranks as one of the most heavily viewed days of television each year throughout the US, and this year’s Super Bowl Sunday, (on February 9th), tracked with historic trends as TV viewing across the day exceeded 110 billion viewing minutes according to Nielsen’s The Gauge report for February.

This total day viewership milestone has been reached just one other time since The Gauge launched in May 2021, with Super Bowl Sunday on February 11th 2024, leading by a relatively slim margin of about 500 million minutes.

A record-breaking 127.7 million viewers watched Fox’s broadcast of Super Bowl LIX, including a simulcast streamed on Tubi (Fox’s free streaming service), which esonated with consumers and further illustrated how cross-platform distribution has materialised into real world success, notes Nielsen.

While previous Super Bowls have offered alternative streaming options, Tubi’s free and subscriptionless features provided a means for the Big Game to reach even more viewers. As the game aired live, Tubi represented a third of all streaming usage and multiplied its audience to nearly 16 times its January 2025 average. Viewers that watched Tubi during the Super Bowl were 38 per cent more likely to be 18-34 than the total game average, and also skewed slightly female. Overall, Tubi’s February usage was up 17 per cent over January to finish with 2 per cent of total TV watch-time, its largest share since July 2024.

Following typical seasonal trends, time spent watching television decreased from January to February. Streaming was least impacted, however, and the category gained 0.9 share points versus January to account for 43.5 per cent of total viewing time this month, marking its largest share of the TV viewership pie to date. By comparison, broadcast (21.2 per cent) and cable (23.2 per cent) combined to account for 44.4 per cent of TV in February.

Time spent watching YouTube on TV in February was up 2.5 per cent versus last month to represent 11.6 per cent of total TV viewing—a record for YouTube and the streaming category overall. Additionally, nearly 27 per cent of time spent streaming in February was dedicated to watching YouTube.

Following its platform-best performance achieved last month, Netflix represented the second largest share among streaming services in February with 8.2 per cent of TV. Netflix also owned the top streaming program in February with its original action-thriller series The Night Agent, which captured 6 billion viewing minutes across the month. Bluey on Disney+ was second with 4.2 billion minutes.

Among cable viewing, the championship game in the inaugural NHL 4 Nations Face-Off drew February’s largest cable audience, with 9.3 million viewers on ESPN. Fox News Channel represented the next 13 top cable telecasts, as cable news gained 8 per cent over January to represent 27 per cent of all cable viewing in February.

On broadcast, the Super Bowl and its pregame and postgame programmes on Fox were followed by NBC’s Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special with 16.5 million viewers, and The Grammys on CBS with 16.2 million viewers. Broadcast dramas, which accounted for the largest share of broadcast viewing in February (27 per cent), were up 15 per cent versus last month and led by CBS’ Tracker (10.6 million) and Matlock (9.4 million).

January’s post-season success for the NFL and College Football Playoffs meant an even steeper decline for traditional TV viewing in February. This was most obvious among sports events viewership, which fell 54 per cent on broadcast and 42 per cent on cable versus January. Despite strong showings by the Super Bowl and aforementioned top telecasts, total broadcast fell by 10 per cent to account for 21.2 per cent of TV (-1.3 pts.). Meanwhile, cable declined 9 per cent and totaled 23.2 per cent of TV (-1.2 pts.).

(The February 2025 interval dates included 01/27/2025 through 02/23/2025.)

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

Tags: bluey, nielsen, super bowl, the gauge, Tubi