Total hours spent watching TV dropped 1.9% in April as the weather warmed up, Nielsen said in its monthly report.
Cable viewing declined the least — 0.6% — and the category picked up share, increasing to 31.5% from 31.1.% in March. Nielsen said cable news viewing accounted for the gain.
Year over year, cable viewing was down 12%.
Broadcast viewing was down 2.7% in April despite the completion of the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament and The Masters golf tournament, which were the two most watched broadcast programs. Viewing of TV dramas was up 2.1%, with NCIS, Blue Bloods and Chicago Fire among the winners.
Broadcast’s share fell to 23.1% in April from 23.3% in March. Compared to a year ago, broadcast viewing was down 3.7%.
Time spent viewing streaming content was down 2.1% in April compared to March and streaming’s share of TV viewing slipped to 34% from 34.1%.
Among the streamers gaining share were YouTube, at 8.1%, up from 7.8% and Fox’s Tubi at 1.1%, up from 1%.
Losing share were Netflix at 6.9%, down from 7.3% in April and Amazon Prime Video, at 2.8%, down from 2.9%.
Virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) accounted for 5.4% of viewing, including 1.2% for YouTube TV and 0.4% for Hulu Plus Live TV, Nielsen said.
