Referring to Nielsen’s latest Ad Supported Gauge, it is clear how powerful the effect of advertising is in American TV.
In Q1 of 2026, nearly 73% of all U.S. TV viewing was ad-supported, meaning that just about one-fourth of viewing happened on ad-free platforms.
What is even more interesting is how ad-supported viewing through streaming platforms has changed.
Based on Nielsen’s data, in Q1 2026, streaming accounted for 46.6% of all ad-supported TV viewing. According to Nielsen, various events, such as the Super Bowl and Winter Olympic Games, along with popular shows like Stranger Things, Landman, and The Pitt, helped bring this figure to this level during the quarter.
Nevertheless, traditional TV also has quite a significant share of the audience experiencing ad-supported viewing, with 28.2% of that connected with broadcast television and 25.2% with cable TV.
Thus, while streaming technology has not completely annihilated the conventional ad-supported TV audience, it can easily add to the reach and effectiveness of the same advertising ecosystem.
And it is not a new thing. When Nielsen started monitoring this indicator in 2025, it stated that 72.4% of all TV viewing involved ads in Q1 2025.
Now, about a year later, this indicator is still almost at the same level!
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