Gracenote: Sports content on SVoDs up 52% YoY
February 19, 2026
By Nik Roseveare
Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, has found that the total catalogue growth of Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+ increased by 20 per cent YoY. Of signifiacnce is sports programme offerings in 2025 across the top five SVoD services increased by 52 per cent 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 by 58 per cent. News is now the third most prevalent genre of FAST programming after Documentary and Drama, up from fourth a year ago. Movies and TV shows available on FAST rose 26 per cent and 24 per cent YoY respectively.
Conversely, there has been a 18 per cent drop in the proportion of FAST shows with the Music genre. 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.
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.
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