This post originally APPEARED on hollywoodreporter.com
Streaming is now your new commercial zone for everything advertising!
“More than 70 percent of all viewing in the first quarter of 2025 came on ad-supported platforms, a new Nielsen report finds.
An early promise of streaming platforms was that users would be able to watch series and movies without the commercials that break up programming on broadcast or cable networks. That’s no longer the case: Almost every major streamer has an ad-supported tier, and new data from Nielsen suggests that a good number of viewers are using them.
The ratings provider has released its first Ad Supported Gauge, showing that nearly three-fourths of TV use — 72.4 percent — in the first quarter was from ad-supported platforms, whether traditional network and cable outlets or streaming with ads. Only 27.6 percent of viewing in the United States was commercial-free.
The release of the ad-supported data comes a couple weeks ahead of the major media companies’ upfront presentations to advertisers. And those companies are selling a narrative of major growth for advertising revenue on their platforms.
TV Use by Platform
Nielsen’s Gauge rankings for March 2025
Disney+ ad revenue is expected to top $197 million in the first quarter of 2025, a 98 percent spike from a year earlier, while Netflix may see $502 million in ad revenue in the same frame (which would be up 88 percent) and Amazon Prime Video could reap $476 million (up 82 percent), per estimates from research firm Moffett Nathanson in a April 21 report.”
