72 Percent of TV Viewing Comes With Ads

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.

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 MoffettNathanson in a April 21 report.

“As we head into the upfront, this ad supported layer to our industry defining Gauge report provides deeper levels of analysis to help guide advertising strategies,” Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said in a statement.

Streaming commands the largest share of TV viewing in the U.S., and it likewise has the biggest piece of ad-supported viewing — though broadcast and cable outlets outperform their overall usage numbers in the ad-supported realm. That only makes sense, as the vast majority of network and cable programming — save for PBS and premium outlets like HBO, Showtime and Starz — comes with ads, while streaming platforms offer the option to watch ad-free.

In the first quarter of 2025, streaming had 42.4 percent of all ad-supported TV use. Multiplying that by the 72.4 percent of viewing that comes on ad-supported platforms equates to about 30.7 percent of all TV use happening via ad-supported streaming. Streaming as a whole averaged 43.3 percent of TV use in the quarter, meaning that a large majority of streaming viewing (about 70 percent) has commercials.

Cable accounted for 28.9 percent of ad-supported viewing from January to March, with broadcast close behind at 28.7 percent. In Nielsen’s regular Gauge numbers, cable was at 23.9 percent of all TV use and broadcast at 21.4 percent. (The “other” category in the monthly Gauge, which includes physical media playback and gaming, falls into the ad-free bucket here.)

Nielsen will release Ad Supported Gauge reports quarterly, with the next one due a month and change before the start of the 2025-26 TV season.