Americans spent a lot of time watching television in January… and it was largely driven by the sheer drawing power of the National Football League.
A blistering new report from Nielsen says that a combination of the NFL and colder weather had Americans huddling indoors to watch Netflix and warm up in the inaugural month of 2024.
Per Nielsen, total TV consumption in January was up 3.7 percent.
And while that percentage may not seem especially significant on its own, some added context shows just how impressive it actually was.
Nielsen notes that January 2024 television consumption was up 1.4 percent year-over-year, which is notable given that January 2023 enjoyed a “reporting period that was longer and wasn’t in short supply of new programming.”
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More so, once you ditch the percentages and look at the raw viewing minute totals, it’s almost difficult to wrap your head around it.
The Jan. 13 NFL wild-card round game between the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins garnered a whopping near-3.9 billion viewing minutes.
(Of note, the Chiefs and ‘Fins tilt happened on Peacock — a contentious issue, to be sure — contributing greatly to raw streaming totals).
For a frame of reference, 3.9 billion minutes is about 74 centuries — and that’s centuries, not years.
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Due in part to those 74 centuries of viewing consumption that the Chiefs and ‘Fins garnered, Nielsen noted that Jan. 13 was a record day in streaming history.
The day itself saw a whopping 40.8 billion viewing minutes, which is a record figure since Nielsen began tracking these figures.
But it’s not just Jan. 13.
Per Nielsen, “January 2024 included nine of the top 10 days with the highest streaming volumes ever recorded.”
And the only reason it didn’t take 10 of the top 10 days ever is because of a technicality, as Dec. 31 (when the tracking for January began) is that 10th record day.
A glance at January’s monstrous television viewership numbers:
- Jan. 13, 2024: Approximately 40.8 billion viewing minutes
- Jan. 14, 2024: Approximately 38.8 billion viewing minutes
- Jan. 6, 2024: Approximately 37.5 billion viewing minutes
- Jan. 27, 2024: Approximately 37 billion viewing minutes
- Jan. 1, 2024: Approximately 36.8 billion viewing minutes
- Jan. 21, 2024: Approximately 36.7 billion viewing minutes
- Jan. 20, 2024: Approximately 36.6 billion viewing minutes
- Jan. 15, 2024: Approximately 36 billion viewing minutes
- Dec. 31, 2023: Approximately 35.9 billion viewing minutes
- Jan. 7, 2024: Approximately 35.8 viewing minutes
Excluding that New Year’s Eve figure, that’s an almost unfathomable 336 billion viewing minutes accounted for in January.
One last interesting tidbit: Streaming is the most popular method of consuming television currently.
Per Nielsen’s analysis, streaming made up 36 percent of television consumption in January 2024.
Traditional cable came in second place with 27.9 percent, broadcast cable came in third with 24.2 percent, while “other” made up that last 11.8 percent.
