The question of how important ESPN is to its parent company, The Walt Disney Company, comes up often. In January, the answer was “very important indeed.” Nielsen’s just-released The Media Distributor Gauge report for January 2025 has Disney topping all competitors with 12.0% of total TV usage (YouTube was second with 10.9%), and the College Football Playoff games in that month were a huge part of that.
According to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge, Disney accounted for 12.0% of time spent watching TV in January 2025, marking its best monthly share of TV among media companies since the report’s inception in November 2023. This success was largely driven by the College Football Playoffs, which represented the seven highest-rated cable telecasts that month and resulted in an impressive 84% increase in ESPN viewership. Overall, viewing to Disney-owned entities rose by 12% compared to December, adding 0.8 share points. Further summarized in Nielsen’s January 2025 Gauge ‘Classic’ report, these results were influenced by a 5% monthly increase in TV watch-time, as a busy news cycle propelled a 26% rise in cable news viewing, with MSNBC up 26%, FOX News Channel up 29%, and CNN up 39%. However, the primary boost for FOX came from its coverage of the presidential inauguration, leading to a 12% increase for FOX in January, tying with Disney for the largest monthly viewing increase among distributors at 7.6% of total TV (+0.5 pt.).
Netflix also made headlines, achieving its highest share of TV to date with 8.6% of overall viewing in January. Following a robust December, Netflix’s watch-time climbed 7% thanks in large part to “Squid Game,” which generated 9 billion viewing minutes as the top streaming title of January, alongside 11 other original series and movies that surpassed 1 billion viewing minutes each.
The ESPN and CFP information is particularly noteworthy. The two first-round games aired on broadcast ABC as well, while the four quarterfinals, two semifinals, and national title game were exclusive to the cable channel, supplemented by alternate feeds on different platforms and various streaming options. This exclusive live content on cable supports ESPN’s industry-leading per-subscriber fee but slightly reduces the total audience. Notably, Disney experienced a substantial CFP bump in January despite not utilizing their largest platform, ABC. It is also significant that this increase occurred in a year when both the semifinal and national title game audiences experienced year-over-year declines, partly due to the format change which moved semifinals away from New Year’s Day. This change allowed ESPN to air six CFP games in January instead of three.
Despite these challenges, ESPN’s audience remained substantial and played a crucial role in Disney’s month-over-month growth. The previous month had seen significant events on ESPN as well, including CFP games and NBA Christmas games, highlighting that while the CFP wasn’t the only factor contributing to January’s success (as ESPN and ABC also featured an NFL wild-card game), it was a major element of ESPN’s top position.
On the non-sports front, it is noteworthy to see FOX performing well in this report, with FOX News cited as more significant than FOX’s coverage of the NFL playoffs. It is also remarkable that Netflix achieved its highest TV share in the month following their exclusive Christmas Day NFL games, which drew substantial ratings and contributed to their best viewership month since 2023, all without live sports content in January. Nevertheless, Disney emerged as the monthly winner among distributors, demonstrating that ESPN, once viewed as a liability for the broader company, was instrumental to that success.
