Christmas Day 2025 Shatters Streaming Record With 55.1 Billion Viewing Minutes

Streaming captured a record 47.5% of TV viewership in December, eclipsing the previous share record set in July thanks to a historic surge in usage on Christmas Day, according to Nielsen

Streaming generated 55.1 billion viewing minutes during the holiday, shattering the previous single day record set in 2024 by 8%. This marks only the second time in TV history where daily streaming volume exceeded 50 billion minutes. 

Viewership was driven by Netflix’s pair of Christmas Day NFL games, followed by the release of Volume 2 of “Stranger Things” Season 5, as well as a late NFL game on Prime Video. Combined, the two streaming services commanded 22.5% of total TV usage across the day.

Overall, streaming levels on Christmas Day reached 54% of daily TV usage, the largest single-day share of TV ever recorded by the category. It marked the second time for the month that the category exceeded 50% of daily TV usage, with the first occurring on Dec. 13 when streaming represented 50.4% of TV.

When looking at the month of December overall, streaming usage was up 3% versus November, doubling the monthly increase of total TV usage. YouTube continued to lead the pack with a 12.7% share of TV for the month.

Netflix grew 10% month over month to a record 9% share of TV, an increase that was largely driven by “Stranger Things,” which generated over 15 billion viewing minutes and was December’s most-watched streaming title. Disney finished third with a 4.7% share of TV, across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.

Prime Video surged 12% month-other-month to a record 4.3% share of TV, driven by four NFL Thursday Night Football games, including a record-setting Christmas Day game, as well as new episodes of its original series “Fallout.”

Rounding out the top five platforms by share for the month was the Roku Channel, which hit an all-time monthly high of 3% of TV.

Following behind was Paramount Streaming, which grew 10% month-over-month to a record 2.5% share of TV across Paramount+ and Pluto. The increase was driven by the Paramount+ original series “Landman,” which generated 6.2 billion viewing minutes and was the month’s second most-watch streaming title.

The remainder of the list included Tubi, which finished the month with a 2% share; Peacock, which ended the month with a 1.7% share; and Warner Bros. Discovery, which had a 1.4% share.

Broadcast finished the month with 21.4% of total TV-watch time in December.

CBS and Fox secured the top broadcast programs for the month, led by Fox’s Eagles vs. Bills NFL matchup on Dec. 28, followed by the Steelers vs. Lions on CBS on Dec. 21. CBS also owned the top non-sports programs of the month with “Tracker” and “60 Minutes,” each capturing over 10 million viewers (live + 7 viewing) and the largest non-sports program audiences. 

Meanwhile, cable accounted for 20.2% of TV viewing for December.

Sports programming saw a 16% bump in viewing and represented 9% of the category’s total share. NFL games represented the top five cable telecasts this month, led by all four of the December’s “Monday Night Football” games on ESPN, followed by the NFL Network’s coverage of the Texans vs. Chargers matchup on Dec. 27.

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