Our March Nielsen Gauge Analysis – YouTube Expands Lead as Top Distributor; The Roku Channel Sees Highest Growth

Research evidence excerpt

Our March Nielsen Gauge Analysis – YouTube Expands Lead as Top Distributor; The Roku Channel Sees Highest Growth

Media & Internet May 19, 2026

Michael Morris, CFA

michael.morris@guggenheimpartners.com Our March Nielsen Gauge Analysis – YouTube

804 253 8025 Expands Lead as Top Distributor; The Roku Channel Grayson Glenn

grayson.glenn@guggenheimpartners.com Sees Highest Growth

804 253 8053

Charles Wilber Key Message: Nielsen released the March Gauge report today (link) with the two month charles.wilber@guggenheimpartners.com

804 335 3977 lag likely driven by client pushback on proposed methodology changes (link). Nielsen

plans to implement these updates ahead of the fall TV season with metrics in the March

Taylor Manley report comparable to prior periods. Our analysis expands on key trends within the report

taylor.manley@guggenheimpartners.com that are not consistently provided, including annual growth rates across platforms and full 804 253 1336

historical data. We estimate total TV viewership decline of 6.2% m/m in March (-2.7% y/y),

consistent with historical post Super Bowl and quadrennial Olympic trends. Nielsen noted

that Streaming viewership declined 7.0% m/m in March, with Cable the only category to

see a monthly viewing increase. On an annualized basis, however, our analysis indicates

continued viewership declines at Broadcast (-3.6%) and Cable (-13.2%) partially offset

by growth at Streaming (+5.8%). Viewership gains among individual services were led

by The Roku Channel (Nielsen reported +27.0% y/y) and Peacock (Nielsen reported

+19.0% y/y), with Tubi the only other platform to see annualized growth >10.0% per our

estimates. The Roku Channel and Peacock also saw the largest y/y share gains within the

Streaming category.