Nielsen has released its latest “Gauge” data update for April 2025, which gives a broad overview of how Americans watch television, including linear and streaming services like Disney+ and Hulu.  

Earlier this year, Nielsen made a change to its Gauge data, bringing together all of Disney’s three streaming services, Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ into a single entity called “Disney Streaming” since all three could be viewed within Disney+.  Nielsen also made a similar adjustment for Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery, with Paramount+ and Pluto represented as “Paramount Streaming” and Max and Discovery+ defined as “Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming.”

According to the latest Nielsen report, for a third consecutive month, streaming’s share of total TV viewing reached a record high in April.

April’s top streaming title was ABC´s “Grey’s Anatomy”, which is a prime example of both multi-channel and multi-platform distribution success. Grey’s racked up 3.9 billion viewing minutes across Hulu, Hulu On Disney+ and Netflix in April, and continued to engage viewers with new episodes from its current, 21st season on both ABC and Hulu.

The latest season streams exclusively on Hulu and accounted for 10% of “Grey’s Anatomy’s” total streaming viewership this month, despite representing just 3% of its episode count. Netflix represented about 60% of its streaming total this month. Highlighting why many studios are still licensing some shows to Netflix, in order to reach a larger audience.

Max benefited from new episodes of HBO’s The White Lotus, which garnered 3.7 billion viewing minutes on the platform and claimed the second most-watched streaming title this month.

YouTube and The Roku Channel each notched platform-best shares of TV in April. Like the overall streaming category, YouTube also hit a platform high for a third straight month with 12.4% of total TV watch-time (+0.4 pt. vs. March). Since January, YouTube has added 1.6 points to its share of TV, and is up 2.8 points since April 2024. The Roku Channel gained 0.2 share point over March to achieve 2.4% of overall TV viewing this month. The Roku Channel’s viewership has increased 21% since November, the same interval when it began offering access to Max and other streaming platforms from within the service*. Year-over-year, The Roku Channel leads all reported distributors with a 67% increase.

Time spent watching broadcast TV in April accounted for 20.8% total usage (+0.3 pt.). The top genres within broadcast were dramas, representing 30% of viewing, followed by news at 14%. The Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship game drew April’s largest broadcast audience with 18.3 million viewers on CBS (up from 7.5 million in 2024 on TBS). The Masters golf tournament finale on CBS also notched a significant audience increase from 2024, up 36% to 13 million viewers this year.

Cable gained 0.5 share points compared to March to represent 24.5% of total TV watch-time this month. ESPN’s coverage of the NFL Draft on April 24 averaged 6.4 million viewers and was the most watched cable telecast in April, while FOX News Channel’s The Five represented the next nine of the top ten telecasts. The first round of the NBA playoffs also contributed to cable sports gains this month, with ESPN and TNT hosting five games apiece and averaging 3.1 and 2.8 million viewers, respectively.

Compared with April 2024, streaming usage has increased 15% and gained 5.9 share points, where broadcast has declined 7% and lost 1.4 share points, and cable has dropped 16% and lost 4.6 share points. However, these changes have put an even stronger emphasis on media companies’ multichannel (i.e. traditional TV and streaming) and multi-platform (multiple streaming services) content distribution strategies, which, in turn, have contributed to the consistent increases in streaming viewership.

Once again, Disney picked up 5% of the usage between Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, just behind Netflix and above Amazon Prime Video.

Roger’s Take: The monthly Gauge data from Nielsen is always a good indication of how the American audience is consuming its television.  It’s also interesting to see the total viewership for March with so many different streaming services making it onto the top 10.  It’s clear that Hulu’s content is still vital to Disney’s streaming future.

What did you watch on TV in April?  Let me know on social media!

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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