In a nutshell: Streaming services' growth isn't slowing down. Thanks to several special events on Christmas Day, a new streaming-usage record was set in the United States: 55.1 billion minutes viewed. That amount means more than 54% of all television usage throughout the day came via streaming.
Nielsen says (via The Hollywood Reporter) that US streaming figures for December 25 beat the previous 2024 record, also set on Christmas Day, by 3.9 billion minutes.
With December 13 also being a massive day – more than half of TV viewing was on streaming services – the month was a record-breaking one for streaming figures. The 47.5% of all TV use in the US between December 1 and December 28 beat the previous high of 47.3%, set in July 2025.
Broadcast networks fell to 21.4% from 23.2% in November, while cable dropped to 20.2%, down three-tenths of a point month-over-month.
There were several shows and events that helped push streaming to new heights on Christmas Day. One of the biggest was Stranger Things – Chapter 5 of the fifth and final season debuted on December 25. Netflix said that the season gained 105.7 million views in total, putting it in ninth place on Netflix's list of most popular English-language series ever.
Another big factor was the broadcast of NFL games on Christmas Day by Netflix and Prime Video. They helped the services gain 22.5% of all TV use on the day, and almost a 42% share of all streaming views.
On other services, the second season of Landman was a huge draw for Paramount, drawing 6.2 billion minutes of viewing throughout December. Only Stranger Things (15 billion minutes) had more viewing time during the month.
Despite Netflix and Amazon Prime Video attracting so many viewers, YouTube still gained the highest share of TV use among the streaming services. Its 12% put it ahead of Netflix (9%), Disney+ (4.7%) and Prime Video (4.3%). Warner Bros. Discovery, which is in the process of being acquired by Netflix, was last among the nine streamers with a 1.4% share.
On other Netflix news, the company is updating its mobile app this year with a bigger focus on vertical video – borrowing a page from TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.