Tubi Joins Nielsen Platform Rankings, Overtakes Pluto TV

The Fox-owned streaming platform Tubi made its debut in Nielsen’s monthly platform rankings, becoming the second FAST service to break into the rankings.

Tubi captured 1 percent of all TV use in February, moving ahead Paramount Global’s Pluto TV (0.7 percent) in Nielsen’s Gauge snapshot. Pluto was the first FAST offering to make the rankings, doing so first in September 2022, and has hovered at or slightly below 1 percent of all viewing in the United States since then.

Nielsen has also tweaked the methodology for the Gauge so that cable and broadcast viewing that happens on platforms like YouTube TV and Hulu + Live isn’t counted twice. In prior monthly rankings, the ratings service attributed viewing of broadcast or cable outlets on so-called vMVPD services as counting toward the shares of both broadcast or cable and streaming services. Starting with February’s rankings, such viewing will only be credited toward broadcast or cable.

For example, Nielsen reported that streaming services accounted for 38.1 percent of all TV use in both December 2022 and January 2023, figures that included vMVPD viewing. Without that, streaming accounted for 32.8 percent of viewing in each month. Broadcast’s and cable’s shares remained the same, as the vMVPD viewing was already credited to those platforms; the change shows up in the “other viewing” category.

In February, streaming accounted for 34.3 percent of all viewing, followed by cable (30.2 percent) and broadcast (23.8 percent). Overall TV use fell by about 5 percent from January, thanks in no small part to a big drop in broadcast sports viewing as the NFL season wound down. Broadcast, cable and streaming outlets all had less viewing time than the previous month, but streaming gained some share thanks to a much smaller decline (-1 percent versus January) than cable (-5.7 percent) or broadcast (-9.2 percent).

Tubi is the ninth streaming service to break the 1 percent threshold for TV use and thus be broken out of the “other streaming” pile in the Gauge. It tied with Peacock in earning 1 percent of TV use. YouTube, despite not having YouTube TV counted toward its total now, remained the top individual streamer with 7.9 percent of all TV use, just ahead of Netflix’s 7.3 percent.

Nielsen’s Gauge rankings for February are below.

Platforms

Streaming: 34.3 percent of TV use
Cable: 30.2 percent
Broadcast: 23.8 percent
Other: 11.7 percent

Streaming Services

YouTube: 7.9 percent
Netflix: 7.3 percent
Hulu: 3.3 percent
Prime Video: 3 percent
Disney+: 1.8 percent
HBO Max: 1.3 percent
Peacock: 1 percent
Tubi: 1 percent
Pluto TV: 0.7 percent
Others: 6.8 percent