Nielsen rolls out seven TV currency changes as ad-supported viewing drops to 71.5%
Ad-supported television accounted for 71.5 percent of total US viewing in the second quarter of 2026, down from 72.8 percent in the first quarter and 74.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Nielsen's Ad-Supported Gauge published August 25. Four days later, on August 31, Nielsen deployed seven methodology changes to its national Big Data Plus Panel currency: co-viewing capture through wrist-worn wearables, a latency-adjusted DASH universe estimate, a household demographic assignment model, integrated weighting, Hispanic universe estimation, an ACR monitored tuning adjustment, and householding for one big data provider. Streaming took 48.2 percent of total viewing in the quarter, broadcast 26.6 percent and cable 25.2 percent. On the adults 18-plus base used in most guarantees, streaming falls to 44.4 percent, broadcast rises to 28.6 percent and cable rises to 27.0 percent.
Campaigns booked against July delivery numbers now sit on a currency that shifted on seven fronts on the same day, so any change in August ratings could trace to wearable co-viewing capture, the new demographic assignment model, the revised weighting, or one of four other adjustments applied August 31. Nielsen's planned migration to Advertising Research Foundation DASH-based universe estimates, due in autumn 2026, will make the fourth-quarter Gauge incomparable with the second-quarter figures published now. Upfront negotiations close inside the eight-week gap between a quarter's end and the Gauge that reports it, so budget commitments get made before the quarterly measurement that might have informed them goes public. Tracking Nielsen's monthly Gauge releases instead of waiting for the quarterly report, and cross-checking against panel-based attention data such as TVision's Ad Scoreboard, gives planners an earlier read on where delivery is actually heading.