Nielsen’s “Media Distributor Gauge” report for December 2025 showed that platforms airing key sports events and movies saw “record-breaking” viewership during the holiday season.
The report, which is an aggregated view of total TV usage by media company, showed that Disney (DIS) captured the highest multiplatform increase, helped by a 30% viewership increase on ESPN, which was driven by Monday Night Football, the expanded College Football Playoffs schedule, and College Gameday.
The programming of holiday films like Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty The Snowman on Freeform also helped Disney in December.
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) benefitted during December through its cable networks, TBS and TNT, whose viewership climbed 23% and 24%, respectively.
“These gains were driven by College Football playoff coverage and holiday movie viewership, with A Christmas Story leading the way for TBS,” Nielsen said. “HBO Max also saw a 10% viewing increase, primarily driven by original series It: Welcome To Derry, alongside the continued popularity of The Big Bang Theory and Friends.”
Nielsen noted that Amazon (AMZN) saw viewership rise 12% in December, attributable to Thursday Night Football coverage, Christmas Day NFL game, and the new season of Fallout.
The Hallmark Channel benefitted the most from holiday movie programming in December, Nielsen said.
The network maintained strong momentum from November and secured the top five movie telecasts across cable distributors, namely She’s Making A List, Single On The 25th, A Suite Holiday Romance, A Make Or Break Holiday, and Oy To The World.
By distributor rankings, the Nielsen report indicated that YouTube (GOOGL) (GOOG) was in the lead in December and had a 12.7% total share of viewership, followed by Disney with 10.7% and Netflix (NFLX) with 9%.
Nielsen Media Distributor Gauge report for December (Nielsen) 
Earlier this month, Nielsen’s “Gauge” report, which is the leading media sector snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption, showed that streaming viewership captured 47.5% of television in December 2025, while broadcast and cable had a share of 21.4% and 20.2%, respectively.
Nielsen Gauge Report December (Nielsen) 
Pay TV distributors: Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), Charter (NASDAQ:CHTR), Dish Network (NASDAQ:SATS), Verizon FiOS (NYSE:VZ), Optimum/Suddenlink (NYSE:ATUS), Atlantic Broadband (OTCPK:CGEAF), Sparklight (NYSE:CABO).
Relevant local broadcast tickers: Nexstar Media Group (NASDAQ:NXST), Sinclair Broadcast Group (NASDAQ:SBGI), Gray Television (NYSE:GTN), Tegna (NYSE:TGNA), E.W. Scripps (NASDAQ:SSP).
National broadcasters: ABC (NYSE:DIS), NBC (NASDAQ:CMCSA), CBS (NASDAQ:PSKY), Fox (NASDAQ:FOX) (NASDAQ:FOXA).
Ad-tech names tied to connected TV: The Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD), Magnite (NASDAQ:MGNI), PubMatic (NASDAQ:PUBM), Criteo (NASDAQ:CRTO), Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU), Illumin (OTCQB:ILLMF).