Disney Widens Lead Among Media Distributors In January With Push From College Football Playoffs

The Walt Disney Co. was the top media distributor in January by a wider margin over No. 2 YouTube because of strong viewing on ESPN during the College Football Playoffs, according to the latest report from Nielsen.

Nielsen said that the college football playoffs, which were expanded to 12 teams last season, hiked viewership on ESPN by 84% for the month. Overall, Disney properties were up 12% from December, with their share of television usage boosted to 12% from 11.2%.

YouTube’s share of viewing fell to 10.8% from 11.1% in December.

Netflix, which remained No. 4 in terms of share, increased its watch-time by 7% partly because of Squid Game, which generated 9 billion viewing minutes in January, making it the top streaming title for the month. Netflix had 11 other original series and movies that drew more than 1 billion viewing minutes each.

The firehose of news from Washington boosted the news channels and Fox was a key beneficiary. With all its properties, Fox was up 12% in the month giving it a 7.6% share of TV usage, up from 7.1%.

While cable news showed increases, holiday movie viewing dropped 22% in the post-Christmas season. Hallmark, which had gained share in November and December, dropped to a 1% share of viewing in January from 1.5% the previous month.

The January Distributor report follows up on Nielsen’s report on broadcast, cable and streaming viewing released last week. NIelsen report does not differentiate between ad-supported and commercial free viewing.

For Nielsen, the January time period ran from December 30 through January 26.