Warner Bros. Discovery had an excellent March thanks to its cable networks’ coverage of the NCAA March Madness tournament. But TNT, TBS, and TruTV were not the only bright spots for the media company, as its streaming service, Max, helped the conglomerate capture the largest monthly viewership increase among media distributors in March.
According to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge report—which looks at total viewing consumption that occurs through a television screen by media distributor across broadcast, cable, and streaming—WBD rose by 0.6% to stand at 6.7% for the month of March.
Max had the largest month-over-month growth (6%) among the various streaming services in March, aided primarily by its drama lineup and its streaming of the March Madness tournament.
The White Lotus was the fourth-most-streamed title in March with 4.5 billion minutes, while medical drama The Pitt also had a strong showing, as it accounted for 2.3 billion viewing minutes, debuting in Nielsen’s Streaming Top 10 for the first time during the week of March 17.
YouTube once again led all media distributors in overall TV viewing in March at 12%, up by 0.4% from February. This marked YouTube’s best TV share ever, eclipsing the record it had set the previous month.
Disney landed in second place at 10.5%, up 0.5% from its performance in February. The cross-platform distribution of the Academy Awards, which had 20.3 million total viewers across ABC and Hulu, along with the return of American Idol and the continued strong showing of ABC News’ evening flagship newscast, ABC World News Tonight With David Muir, fueled Disney’s strong showing.
Paramount Global was the last major media distributor to record positive gains in March, with an 8.5% share in TV usage. The media company, which landed in third place, was up 0.3% compared to the previous month.
Rounding out the top five media distributors responsible for TV usage was NBCUniversal in the No. 4 position with 8%, down 0.1%, followed by Netflix in fifth with 7.9%, down 0.3% compared to February.
