26/02/2026 - At the industry gathering, new data explored streaming’s growing dominance, YouTube and Netflix audience trends, and broadcasters’s hyper-distribution strategies

Frédéric Vaulpré during the presentation

On 22 February, during the second edition of MIP London, Frédéric Vaulpré, Senior Vice-President of Glance (television research and market‑intelligence division of Médiamétrie), has shared industry insights with the audience in Cracking Audience Trends: Who is Watching What, How & Why?

The presentation began with an overview of the daily number of hours each individual spends watching linear TV across different European countries. What emerged is that, in Northern Europe, TV consumption is currently very close to North America, at around two hours per day in countries such as the UK or the Netherlands. In Southern Europe, in a country like Italy, it rises to three hours and 27 minutes.

Key facts on content viewership show a clear decline in live TV consumption. The U.S. provides a strong example: in just four years, linear TV usage dropped from 60% to 44%, reflecting a major shift in viewing habits. Cable channels have been hit the hardest, with many now holding less than a 1% audience share, including networks such as AMC, HBO and Lifetime.

“The turning point where the triggers have started to be higher was last May. And now, streamers are bigger than TV channels. But what you can see on this slide is that US networks are very consistent; they accounted for 23% as of November 2025, while cable stood at 21% and streaming at 47%. Looking beyond the US, we see streaming gaining ground on linear TV in a similar way in the UK (34%), Mexico (24%) and Brazil (37%), for example, due to strong competition, a very dynamic pay-TV market and powerful private broadcasters,” Frédéric Vaulpré explained.

The two real market winners remain YouTube and Netflix: “When you look at Netflix, it's very consistent from one country to the other, but YouTube is much bigger. So we would like to understand why YouTube is so dynamic. If we look at the UK number, for example, it's a crazy number: a unique reach of 80% of the population in one month. We need to focus on the smaller segment. We decided to focus on heavy viewers in order to better understand what drives YouTube audiences. When we analyse YouTube viewing patterns, we see that 25% of viewers account for 75% of total consumption. What is particularly interesting is the comparison with Netflix. We observe a similar pattern there: 25% of Netflix viewers generate 65% of total viewing.”

The Senior Vice President of Glance pointed out that, unsurprisingly, YouTube skews younger, with viewers aged 4 to 15 representing 28% of its audience, compared with 14% for Netflix - effectively doubling the share. “Another interesting viewing pattern is where people are watching content. TV screen accounts for between 45% and 80% of consumption on the major platforms - Disney+, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. That’s not the case for YouTube, which has a more balanced viewing pattern across PC, tablet, mobile and the TV screen. Conversely, of course, TikTok is the king of mobile-first consumption,” he added.

“BVOD is expanding rapidly. The UK provides a clear example: BBC iPlayer now accounts for almost a quarter of total BBC viewing, up four percentage points compared to last year. It also attracts a significantly younger audience. Around 20% of BBC iPlayer viewers are aged 16 to 34, compared to just 4% for traditional linear television. A similar viewing pattern can be observed for ITV. One of the reasons broadcasters are accelerating development on platforms is monetisation.”

The expert went on to discuss further insights into distribution: “Some pay-TV aggregators, such as Sky in the UK and Canal+ in Europe, aim to distribute all major streaming platforms. Canal+ provides a good example. Within the Canal+ interface, 90% of Netflix users in France access the platform through Canal+. For Paramount+, the figure is even higher, with most viewing taking place via Canal+ in its role as aggregator. Another important point is that not all channels pursue the same hyper-distribution strategy. In France, the cultural channel Arte made an early decision to embrace this model, and today only 20% of Arte’s content is distributed directly by the broadcaster itself, while 80% is distributed through other platforms.” As he noted, this is not the case for all broadcasters: many still retain the majority of their distribution in-house. For example, M6 Group distributes 96% of its content itself. However, this may help explain why it has just signed a distribution agreement with Amazon Prime Video.

Furthermore, hardly a day passes without news of a new agreement between a broadcaster and a platform, highlighting the intense push for hyper-distribution. Behind this model lie several critical issues: for public broadcasters, the priority is maintaining viewer loyalty. For both public and private players, the objective is to expand reach, particularly among younger audiences. And for private broadcasters specifically, the goal is to grow high-quality digital ad inventory.

“What we see right now is, on one side, what could be called a “streamification” of broadcasters, and on the other, the “broadcastification” of streamers. For example, in 2024 Disney+ introduced two live-consumption playlists - ABC News Live and Disney+ Playtime - joined by The Simpsons Live channel last November. Netflix and HBO Max have also begun working on this strategy over the past 18 months,” Vaulpré highlighted.