Disney Leads in January TV Consumption Thanks to ESPN and College Football

Seven of the highest-rated cable telecasts in January belonged to Disney, which was the top media company in TV consumption.

According to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge, which looks at which media company is responsible for the largest share of TV viewing, January consumption was up +5%, with Disney-owned entities accounting for 12% of that TV viewing time courtesy of the College Football Playoffs, which aired on ESPN.

This was Disney’s best monthly share of TV usage among the 14 media distributors measured. It improved from its December performance by +12% as Disney-owned entities added +0.8 share points.

Sports, particularly football, were responsible for the good January numbers, with the NFL and NCAA football games boosting broadcast and cable consumption, with share increases of +0.1 share points to 22.5% and +0.6 share points to 24.4%, respectively.

Broadcast again flexed its muscles as the NFL AFC Championship game on Sunday, Jan. 26, on CBS drew the largest audience with 57.4 million total viewers. The NFC Championship game on Fox, which was also held on the same day, had 44.2 million total viewers.

Coverage of the College Football Playoffs on ESPN and other various bowl games helped drive a +42% bump in cable sports viewing in January. Cable also received some major assistance from the big cable news networks, as they recorded a +26% increase in cable news viewing. That was led by CNN, which had a +39% increase. Fox News had a +29% increase, and MSNBC had a +26% viewing increase.

Streaming still commanded the largest share of media consumption, with 42.6%, led by YouTube, which was also the No.2 media distributor behind Disney in TV consumption.

Rounding out the top five media distributors responsible for TV usage is Paramount Global, which landed at No. 3 with 8.9%, courtesy of its airing of CBS and the NFL playoff games. Netflix was fourth with 8.6%, its highest TV share to date, with Squid Game generating 9 billion viewing minutes and landing as January’s top streaming title. In fifth place was NBCUniversal, which had 8.1% of the TV share.

Outside of the top five was Fox Corp., which also aired NFL games and got a boost from Fox News due to an active news cycle, finishing in sixth place with 7.6% of total TV usage. It was also up +12% in January, tying with Disney for the media distributors’ largest monthly viewing increase.

See the media distribution ranking below:

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Disney Leads in January TV Consumption Thanks to ESPN and College Football

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