January is usually a big month for TV viewing, and the first month of 2026 was no exception.
TV use in the United States reached its highest level in January since … January 2025, according to Nielsen’s monthly Gauge report. Across all platforms, viewing rose by 3.7 percent from December, with cable and broadcast growing at even higher rates than that. As a result, the two linear platforms increased their share of overall use some, while streaming — which grew by 2.7 percent month to month — fell off slightly in share from December’s all-time high.
Streaming still had a large plurality of all TV viewing with 47 percent of the total, vs. 47.5 percent in December. The series finale of Netflix’s Stranger Things, which debuted Dec. 31 (and is included in Nielsen’s January reporting period, which covers Dec. 29, 2025-Jan. 25, 2026), was a big part of that. The finale and the show as a whole drew 15.4 billion minutes of viewing time over those four weeks.
Cable bounced back some from an all-time low of 20.2 percent of all viewing in December to come in at 21.2 percent. The College Football Playoff, capped by an audience of 30.1 million viewers for the Jan. 19 title game, and a deluge of big news pushed sports and news viewing up by 49 percent and 13 percent, respectively. ESPN and Fox News each accounted for 2.2 percent of all TV use during the month.
Broadcast outlets had 21.5 percent of viewing in January, up slightly from 21.4 percent in December. The close of the NFL regular season and the playoffs drove big audiences to broadcasters, as did the return of a number of network dramas from their end-of-year breaks.
Among individual streaming services, YouTube remained the clear leader with 12.5 percent of all TV use, off slightly from 12.7 percent the previous month. Disney streaming (4.9 percent), Tubi (2.1 percent) and Peacock (1.8 percent) registered small gains month to month.
Nielsen’s Gauge stats for January 2026 are below.
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