Streaming didn't just have a big Christmas—it effectively owned the TV screen. New Nielsen data shared with Axios show that online platforms accounted for 54% of all television viewing in the US on Christmas Day, only the second time streaming has ever cleared the 50% threshold in a single day, per Axios. Viewers logged 55.1 billion minutes of streaming, up 8% from the previous Christmas record set in 2024.
Football and a hit sci-fi series did much of the heavy lifting. Netflix's NFL "Christmas Gameday" telecast of the Lions-Vikings game averaged 27.5 million US viewers, which the company says makes it the most-streamed NFL game on record, according to Nielsen stats. At its peak, that game was drawing more than 30 million viewers, per Nielsen data cited by Reuters. Netflix's Cowboys-Commanders broadcast pulled in another 19.9 million, on average. Looking at it through an international lens, viewers from more than 200 countries or territories watched at least one of those games, per the Wrap.
Three new episodes of Stranger Things' final season helped keep those viewers from turning the TV off once the games ended, per Axios. Between 3:30pm and 4pm ET on Christmas Day, Netflix alone accounted for 25.3% of all television viewing in the country, Nielsen found. Taken together, Netflix and Amazon's Prime Video captured 22.5% of total TV time for the day, underscoring how tech platforms are tightening their grip on audiences as they pour money into live sports rights, marquee series, and carefully timed holiday programming.
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