Streaming Statistics 2026: Subscribers, Revenue & Market Share

These streaming statistics today open with the headline reading from Nielsen. Streaming represented 44.8% of total US TV viewership in May 2025, while broadcast (20.1%) and cable (24.1%) combined for 44.2%, per Nielsen’s monthly Gauge report. The streaming wars phase is closing; the consolidation phase is opening. The data below covers subscriber counts, total TV-usage share, music streaming, market sizing, churn rates, demographics, FAST channels, CTV advertising, content spend, and connected-device viewing earnings cycles.

Key Takeaways

• Streaming reached 44.8% of total US TV viewership in May 2025, the first month it exceeded the combined broadcast and cable share since Nielsen launched The Gauge in May 2021.
• Netflix closed Q4’24 with 301.63 global paid memberships (in millions) after adding 18.91 net additions in the quarter, the largest quarterly figure across the trailing four-quarter window.
• Spotify reached 678 million monthly active users and 268 million paid subscribers in Q1 2025, growing MAU 10% year over year.
• YouTube Shorts averages 200 billion daily views as of January 2026, and YouTube Music and Premium together count 125 million subscribers, including trial users.
• Premium SVOD subscriber growth fell to approximately +7% in 2025 from 12% in 2024, the first single-digit annual growth Antenna has measured for the category.
• Disney’s Entertainment SVOD operating income hit $450 million in Q1 fiscal 2026, up $189 million year over year, with Q2 FY26 guidance pointing to approximately $500 million.
• Premium SVOD weighted-average churn settled at 4.6% in 2025, with 7 of 11 measured months running flat or lower year over year.

Editor’s Choice

• Nielsen’s Gauge clocked YouTube at 12.5% of all US TV viewing in May 2025, the highest monthly share any streamer has ever recorded on the panel.
• YouTube’s main viewership climbed over 120% since May 2021 on Nielsen’s measure, while Netflix gained 27% over the same window.
• Spotify’s total revenue reached €4.2 billion in Q1 2025, up approximately 15% year over year, with operating income of €509 million.
• Disney reported total Q1 fiscal 2026 revenue of $26.0 billion, up 5% versus Q1 fiscal 2025, with the Experiences segment hitting record quarterly revenue of $10.0 billion.
• Q4 in 2025 drove 31% of Premium SVOD annual gross additions and 57% of net additions in the United States, per Antenna’s measurement panel.
• Netflix Q4’24 operating income reached 2,273 million in dollars on revenue of 10,247 million in dollars, a 22.2% operating margin.
• TV has surpassed mobile as the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. by watch time, per YouTube’s CEO, January 2026 letter.

Recent Developments

• February 2026: Disney reported Entertainment SVOD operating income of $450 million for Q1 fiscal 2026 (quarter ended December 27, 2025), up $189 million versus the prior-year period.
• January 2026: YouTube CEO disclosed that YouTube Shorts averages 200 billion daily views and that YouTube Music and Premium subscribers reached 125 million globally, including trials.
• January 2026: Netflix closed Q4’24 with 301.63 global paid memberships (in millions) after 18.91 net adds, a 15.9% year-over-year membership gain.
• Q4 2025: Antenna estimated that Premium SVOD services drove 31% of annual gross additions and 57% of net additions in the fourth quarter.
• May 2025: Nielsen reported streaming had reached 44.8% of total US TV viewership, the first month its share exceeded broadcast and cable combined.
• April 2025: Spotify reported Q1 2025 subscribers at 268 million and monthly active users at 678 million, with operating income of €509 million.

Total Streaming TV Usage Share

• The headline reading in any current streaming statistics roundup is the Nielsen Gauge milestone. Nielsen’s Gauge, the panel-based monthly report that benchmarks streaming, broadcast and cable share of US TV usage, recorded streaming at 44.8% in May 2025, versus broadcast at 20.1% and cable at 24.1%. That milestone landed exactly four years after The Gauge launched, giving the category a clean before-and-after frame.
• Streaming usage in May 2025 was up 71% compared with May 2021, while broadcast viewing fell 21% and cable viewing fell 39% over the same four-year window. The number of individual streaming services exceeding one share point of total TV usage expanded from the original five (Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Prime Video, Disney+) at Gauge launch to 11 platforms by May 2025.
• Inside the streaming bucket, YouTube continues to widen its lead. YouTube Main (excluding YouTube TV) accounted for 12.5% of all television viewing in May 2025, its fourth consecutive monthly share increase and the highest share any streamer has ever recorded on Nielsen’s panel. Netflix has been the leading SVOD provider on the Gauge wire-to-wire for four straight years, with viewership up 27% since May 2021. Free-tier short-form video and subscription long-form video have, in effect, become the two anchors of the streaming pie.

Source: Nielsen, The Gauge May 2025 report (id-1).

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SVOD Subscriber Counts by Platform

Headline subscriber counts moved meaningfully across the most recent earnings cycle, with Netflix once again the volume anchor.

Key finding: Streaming reached 44.8% of US TV usage in May 2025, marking the first month its share exceeded combined broadcast and cable. Nielsen’s Gauge tracker had measured the gap for four years before that inflection point landed.

• Netflix ended Q4’24 with 301.63 global paid memberships (in millions), up from 260.28 at the close of Q4’23. Quarterly net additions in Q4’24 totalled 18.91, the largest quarter of net adds across the trailing four-quarter window that ran 13.12, 9.33, 8.05 and 5.07 before it (all figures in millions).
• Netflix Q4’24 revenue reached $10,247 million, up 16% year over year, with operating income of $2,273 million at a 22.2% operating margin. The combination of paid sharing crackdowns, ad-tier maturation and tentpole slate releases delivered a subscriber, ARPU, and margin trifecta most peers are still chasing.
• Disney has finally turned its SVOD bundle profitable at scale. Disney’s Entertainment SVOD segment, covering Disney+ and Hulu subscription video-on-demand (excluding Hulu Live TV and Fubo vMVPD services), reported operating income of $450 million in Q1 fiscal 2026, up $189 million versus the prior-year period. Disney’s Q1 fiscal 2026 SVOD revenue grew 11% year over year, lifting SVOD operating margin to 8.4%. Disney guided Q2 fiscal 2026 Entertainment SVOD operating income to approximately $500 million, an increase of approximately $200 million versus Q2 fiscal 2025.

Sources: Netflix Q4 2024 8-K (id-2); Disney Q1 FY26 earnings press release (id-4).

Which streaming service has the most subscribers?

Netflix closed Q4’24 with 301.63 global paid memberships (in millions), the company’s own headline subscriber line for the quarter. Disney rolls Disney+ and Hulu SVOD into one combined line in its earnings reporting, so a clean brand-level comparison needs the 10-Q breakouts. The broader Digital media industry view places subscription video alongside theatrical, music and gaming for the full revenue picture.

Music Streaming Statistics

• The audio side of the streaming statistics picture sits on two anchors, Spotify and YouTube Music.
• Spotify’s Q1 2025 print confirmed both that the freemium funnel still scales and that the paid conversion engine still works. Spotify subscribers reached 268 million in Q1 2025, with the company describing the quarter’s net additions as its highest Q1 net adds since 2020. Monthly active users reached 678 million in Q1 2025, up approximately 10% year over year.
• The revenue side tracked the user side. Spotify reported total revenue of €4.2 billion in Q1 2025, up approximately 15% year over year, with gross margin improving approximately 400 bps year over year to 31.6%. Operating income rose to €509 million in Q1 2025, a record high for the company. Founder Daniel Ek framed the quarter as a strong start, and the freemium-as-recession-buffer thesis is what investors keep coming back to. Granular cohort behaviour sits in our Spotify user data breakdown.
• YouTube Music and Premium subscribers globally reached 125 million, including trial users as of January 2026, per the YouTube CEO’s annual letter.

Global Content Streaming Market Size

• Reading the total streaming market size from primary sources requires triangulating across the public companies that disclose it cleanly. The revenue arithmetic of just three reporters anchors the scale. Netflix posted $10,247 million in Q4’24 revenue, up 16% year over year, with the company’s beginning-of-Q1’25 forecast pointing to 10,416 (11.2% Y/Y growth). Disney’s first quarter of fiscal 2026 brought in $26.0 billion in total revenue across all segments, up 5% versus the prior-year quarter. Spotify alone added €4.2 billion in Q1 2025 revenue on an approximately 15% year-over-year growth rate.
• Read together, primary-source revenue clears the tens of billions per quarter.

Sources: Netflix Q4 2024 8-K (id-2); Disney Q1 FY26 release (id-4); Spotify Q1 2025 newsroom (id-3).

Subscriber Growth and Churn Rates

The most consequential streaming statistics line of the year is the growth deceleration.

The takeaway: Premium SVOD subscriber growth has fallen to a single-digit +7% in 2025 from 12% in 2024, while weighted-average churn settled at a stable 4.6% across the category. The combination signals that the streaming wars have moved out of the growth phase and into a margin-discipline phase across every major US platform.

• The Premium SVOD category just printed its first sustained single-digit growth year. Antenna estimated that total US Premium SVOD subscribers grew approximately 7% in 2025, down from 12% in 2024, the first time category growth fell into single digits. Gross additions also grew approximately 7% in 2025, a four-percentage-point year-over-year decline versus FY2024.
• Underneath the growth deceleration, churn finally stabilized. The weighted-average churn rate for Premium SVOD hit 4.6% in 2025, with the category posting flat or lower churn in 7 of 11 months between September 2024 and August 2025 versus the same months a year earlier. Antenna observed that 7 of 9 measured services showed more stable churn patterns in 2025 versus 2023. Stabilization is not reduction, but for an industry that spent the prior two years cycling subscribers through trial windows, that weighted average reads as a working baseline.
• The fourth quarter is now where Premium SVODs concentrate their growth. Premium SVODs drove 31% of annual Gross Adds and 57% of Net Adds in Q4 in 2025, thanks to the power of Black Friday and leveraging hit shows. Q4 has become streaming’s equivalent of broadcast television’s traditional new Fall season.

What is the streaming churn rate?

Antenna’s weighted-average Premium SVOD churn rate held at a steady 4.6% for full-year 2025; over the separate September 2024 to August 2025 window, the category posted flat or lower churn in 7 of 11 months year over year, versus 2 of the prior 21. The number is a category aggregate, not a per-service figure, and individual services vary materially around that mean. Cohort-level patterns also still skew young, with Gen Z and millennial subscribers showing measurably higher cancellation behaviour than the category average (see Demographic section below).

Streaming Penetration by Region or Country

• The regional cut of streaming statistics is uneven across the platforms that disclose it.
• Country-level penetration data tracks the publicly disclosed earnings best in the United States, where panel measurement is densest. Nielsen’s Gauge measures the United States and reported streaming at 44.8% of total TV usage in May 2025, with broadcast at 20.1% and cable at 24.1%. YouTube reports that TV has surpassed mobile and is the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. by watch time.
• Global subscriber footprints come from the platform companies themselves. Netflix’s 301.63 Q4’24 paid memberships (in millions) are a global figure spanning every operating market. Spotify’s 678 million monthly active users and 268 million paid subscribers in Q1 2025 are similarly company-wide totals. The cleanest cross-country comparisons sit inside platform 10-Q regional breakouts, not third-party penetration estimates.

Sources: Nielsen Gauge (id-1); Netflix Q4 2024 8-K (id-2); Spotify Q1 2025 newsroom (id-3).

FAST Channels and Free Ad-Supported Streaming

• Free ad-supported streaming TV is the structural sponge that has soaked up the bottom of the Premium SVOD funnel. The Gauge already counts it inside the total streaming share. Nielsen’s May 2025 Gauge measured streaming at 44.8% of TV viewership, with six additional streaming services now reported in the list of platforms that exceed a full share point of TV usage versus the original five.
• Inside that aggregate, the lines between ad-supported subscription tiers and pure FAST channels are blurring on the demand side. Antenna reports that Q4 of 2025 drove 31% of annual Premium SVOD gross adds and 57% of net adds, attributing the concentration to the power of Black Friday and hit shows on the slate. FAST and ad-supported SVOD are increasingly one ad-funded universe rather than two distinct categories.

Sources: Nielsen Gauge (id-1); Antenna Q1 2026 report (id-5).

Connected TV (CTV) Advertising Statistics

• CTV ad spend is the monetization cut of the streaming statistics dataset that compounds fastest.
• The ad-tier conversation maps directly into connected TV ad inventory. Disney’s segment economics are the cleanest read on the monetization curve. Disney’s Entertainment SVOD revenue grew 11% year over year in Q1 fiscal 2026, lifting SVOD operating margin to 8.4%. Disney’s forward Q2 fiscal 2026 guidance pegged Entertainment SVOD operating income at approximately $500 million, an increase of approximately $200 million year over year.
• Netflix’s own ad business sits inside its blended ARM disclosures rather than as a stand-alone segment. Netflix attributed its Q4’24 revenue beat in part to ad sales and membership growth outpacing the company’s beginning-of-quarter forecast, despite US dollar strength weighing on F/X-neutral comparisons. The cleaner CTV ad signal sits in Disney’s segment math; Netflix’s signal is still embedded inside the bundle.

Sources: Disney Q1 FY26 release (id-4); Netflix Q4 2024 8-K (id-2).

Streaming Content Spend by Major Platforms

• Content spend now reads through the margin disclosure rather than the headline budget announcements. Netflix delivered a 22.2% operating margin in Q4’24 on $10,247 million of revenue, with a Q1’25 forecast of 28.2%. The implied operating-cost base in the quarter is the revenue minus operating income, with content amortization the largest single line in that base.
• Disney’s content spend reads through the Entertainment segment’s profitability swing. Disney’s Entertainment segment operating income declined $0.6 billion to $1.1 billion in Q1 fiscal 2026, even as SVOD operating income inside that segment rose $189 million. The Entertainment segment splits cleanly now, with SVOD climbing while traditional Networks and theatrical drag.

Sources: Netflix Q4 2024 8-K (id-2); Disney Q1 FY26 release (id-4).

Streaming Usage by Demographic

• Demographic patterns sit at the centre of the churn-stabilization paradox, with the same Gen Z cohort that drives much of social media screen time also cycling streaming subscriptions hardest. Antenna’s weighted-average churn rate for Premium SVOD hit 4.6% in 2025 across all subscribers in the category. The aggregate number masks well-documented cohort skew, with Gen Z and millennial subscribers cycling more.
• The fourth-quarter concentration is itself a demographic signal. Premium SVODs drove 31% of annual Gross Adds and 57% of Net Adds in Q4 in 2025, with Black Friday promotions and hit shows as the named drivers. Antenna characterized 2025 not as a year of decline but of maturation for Premium SVOD, with subscriber acquisition concentrated around key programming events and promotions. The strategic implication for streamers is that demographic targeting and Q4 programming windows are increasingly the same problem.

Are Gen Z and millennials cancelling streaming services?

The aggregated 4.6% weighted-average churn for Premium SVOD in 2025 reflects broad convergence across the category, with 7 of 9 services showing more stable churn patterns versus 2023 and Antenna framing the picture as maturation rather than decline. Older cohorts likely drive the smoothing, while younger subscribers still churn-and-return around tentpole windows. That dynamic is exactly why Q4 carried the bulk of net adds.

Streaming Device and Watch-Time Statistics

• The television set has reclaimed its position as the primary streaming surface. TV has surpassed mobile and is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. by watch time, per YouTube’s CEO, January 2026 letter. According to Nielsen, YouTube has been #1 in streaming watch time in the U.S. for two years.
• The format mix on those devices is just as important as the device mix. YouTube Shorts now averages 200 billion daily views globally, a number disclosed in the YouTube CEO’s January 2026 annual letter. Short-form is no longer mobile-only; the unified product is long-form on TV plus short-form everywhere.
• Connected devices outside the smart-TV category also matter. The gaming consoles installed base is a meaningful streaming surface, with PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch all carrying the major SVOD and FAST apps. The consoles’ watch-time share is captured implicitly inside Nielsen’s TV-usage panel rather than broken out separately.

Sources: YouTube’s CEO, January 2026 letter (id-6); Nielsen Gauge May 2025 (id-1).

Live Streaming and Sports Rights

• Live programming continued to drive headline membership moves. Netflix attributed Q4’24 membership growth in part to its slate, including Squid Game season 2 (the most-viewed second season ever on the service) and Carry-On (one of its most popular original films of all time). The live-and-event-driven acquisition pattern that Antenna identifies at the category level shows up cleanly in Netflix’s own narrative.
• The connection between live sports rights and platform economics surfaces in the segment math. Disney’s Sports segment posted Q1 fiscal 2026 operating income of $191 million. Disney’s Experiences segment posted record quarterly revenue of $10.0 billion and segment operating income of $3.3 billion in Q1 fiscal 2026.

Streaming Bundles and AVOD Adoption

• Bundle economics are the next chapter in the streaming statistics narrative.
• Bundling is the connective tissue between subscription and ad-supported streaming. Disney’s Entertainment SVOD line aggregates Disney+ and Hulu subscription video-on-demand (excluding Hulu Live TV and Fubo vMVPD services), and that aggregated line produced $450 million of operating income in Q1 fiscal 2026. The same Q1 fiscal 2026 cycle saw Disney’s SVOD operating margin climb to 8.4% as SVOD revenue grew 11% year over year.
• Spotify’s freemium-to-paid funnel is the audio analogue to video bundling. Spotify’s 678 million Q1 2025 MAU and 268 million paid subscribers imply a paid-conversion ratio just below four in ten across the global user base. That conversion rate, on a duration basis, is one of the more durable consumer-internet funnel ratios still in operation.

Sources: Disney Q1 FY26 release (id-4); Spotify Q1 2025 newsroom (id-3).

Conclusion

The streaming statistics picture this year is materially clearer than it was twelve months ago. Streaming has cleared 44.8% of US TV usage versus 44.2% combined for broadcast and cable, with the underlying Gauge tracker showing a 71% streaming usage increase and a 39% cable decline since May 2021. At the same time, the growth phase in the streaming statistics dataset is over. Premium SVOD subscriber growth dropped to approximately +7% in 2025 from 12% in 2024, and Netflix’s 301.63 Q4’24 paid memberships (in millions) continue to anchor the category, while Disney has lifted Entertainment SVOD operating income to $450 million in Q1 fiscal 2026.

The next twelve months are a margin contest, not a subscriber land-grab.