For the first time, Nielsen has reported TV time spent viewing estimates for HBO Max — with the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned service coming in with a 1% share for April 2022, as the streaming sector overall took its highest share of U.S. TV viewing to date.
HBO Max previously was included in Nielsen’s “other streaming” category. The measurement firm broke it out now that HBO Max hit the 1% share threshold. As of the end of March, HBO Max and HBO had 48.6 million domestic subscribers, up 1.8 million from the prior quarter.
For April, Netflix took the No. 1 spot among streamers with 6.6% share of time spent viewing on TV in April, followed by YouTube (6.1%), Hulu (3.3%), Amazon’s Prime Video (2.5%) and Disney+ (1.7%).
Overall, streaming saw another record-breaking month — beating the previous record set in March — grabbing 30.4% share, its highest of total TV viewing to date. Although overall TV viewing time decreased by 2.1% from March (which Nielsen says is typical for this time of year), time spent streaming in April was flat month-over-month.
Both broadcast and cable saw a decrease in viewing, down by 3% and 2.5%, respectively. For broadcast, there was a 14.7% decline in drama viewing and a 38.2% drop in sports viewing, according to Nielsen. The dip in cable viewing was driven by a 16.9% decline in news viewing, somewhat offset by a 17% increase in sports fueled by the viewing of the NCAA basketball finals and NBA.
