The news: TV viewing hit a 12-month high in January, driven by major sporting events and seasonal spikes, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge report

• Cable TV saw the largest viewing increase MoM, growing 9% to account for 21.2% of total TV viewing.
• Increases were driven by the College Football Playoffs, with cable sports viewing increasing 49% over December. An active political news cycle also contributed to January gains, with cable news rising 13% MoM.
• Streaming reaffirmed its position as the new norm for TV viewing after hitting record levels in December. Time spent streaming video content grew 2.7% MoM, while streaming accounted for 47% of overall TV usage.
• Netflix saw growth from the top streaming program, “Stranger Things,” for the second month in a row. The platform accounted for 8.8% of overall TV viewing, up 1% from December, with “Stranger Things” raking in 15.4 billion viewing minutes.
• Peacock grew viewership 10% MoM, driven by its new season of “The Traitors” and simulcasts of NFL games on NBC.

Behind the surge: January’s growth proved the value of live sports, popular IP, and breaking news to reach large audiences—something increasingly valuable in a moment of mass fragmentation.

• Live sports—where viewers account for nearly half of the US population—remains a reliable vehicle for broad audience reach, while simultaneously helping cable stay afloat as audiences shift to streaming. As general entertainment continues shifting to on-demand options, sports programming has become one of cable’s strongest retention tools.
• January’s hyperactive news cycle provided a temporary, but meaningful, lift for cable, showing that moments of political intensity and breaking developments can concentrate audiences at scale. News spikes might not curb cable news’ long-term decline, but highlight an opportunity for linear platforms to reassert their role as a real-time destination for major events.
• But while cable saw the largest MoM increase, streaming again accounted for nearly half of overall viewing, highlighting its modern dominance in TV viewing even during a linear rebound.
• The contrast underscores a structural shift. Live events are critical for buoying linear’s viewing performance, but TV consumption has firmly moved in favor of streaming platforms. Tentpole content like sports is increasingly distributed across both linear and streaming, indicating that streaming is well positioned to capture incremental audience share over time.