By Adam 
There are many factors that can affect TV viewing habits, including the program schedules, weather and sports season, but few things have as much impact as the simple one: the time you take off. According to The Gauge, SME’s total TV and streaming snapshot, the Thanksgiving holiday and time away from our daily routines inspired consumers to spend 5% more time with TV each week in November.
The overall rise in TV use during November was not evenly distributed. Notably, the time away from school gave students the opportunity to spend more time playing video games (included in the “other” category, which gained a share point) and watching content on Disney+.
There were three major changes to November’s total TV use:
- Broadcast TV’s share points fell due to dips in sitcom and general drama viewing (-12%).
- Sports viewing remained strong, with viewing up 7%—even without the World Series.
- This category saw a 12 percent increase due to seasonal interest in feature films. Two perennial top performers drove the evening animation segment to record numbers this month. Grinch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Disney+, the sole streamer platform that saw a change in viewership, was also the most affected. The platform’s nearly 20% increase of viewing time contributed to a percentage point gain in total viewing. Two primary factors drove the increase: the additional availability of the platform’s key audience (kids) the Disney+ Day release of Shang Chi and Jungle Cruise. Separately, Amazon Prime Video’s total share remained flat at 2%, but the platform did see an 8% increase in total minutes viewed compared with October.
Let me take you to the details of our methodology.
You can see Brian Fuhrer (SVP Product Strategy, SME) giving a behind-the scenes view of some of The Gauge’s viewing adjustments.
METHODOLOGY & FREQUENTLY ABUSED QUESTIONS
The Gauge is a monthly analysis of consumers’ access to content on key TV delivery channels, such as Broadcast, Streaming and Cable. This chart includes information about the top streaming providers. This chart shows individual streaming distributors’ share of each category as well as total TV usage.
The Gauge’s data are derived from data taken from two weighted panels. These are combined into the graphic. SME’s streaming data is derived from a subset of Streaming Meter-enabled TV households within the National TV panel. The linear TV sources (Broadcast and Cable), as well as total usage are based on viewing from SME’s overall TV panel.
Each viewing source has a different time period, so all data is specific. The data, representing a 5 week month, includes a combination of Live+7 for weeks 1 – 4 in the data time period and Live+3 for week 5. Notice: Live+7 covers live television viewing as well as viewing until seven days after the event. The Live+3 package includes live television viewing and viewing for up to three additional days.
Within The Gauge, “Other” includes all other TV. All other TV, including unmeasured source tuning, Video on Demand (VOD), streaming through a cable set-top box, Gaming and any other device (DVD playback), are included in this category. Because Streaming via Cable Set Top Boxes does not credit respective streaming distributors, these are included in the “Other” category. SME will continue to work with Cable Set Top Boxes to credit streaming distributors.
Streaming platforms listed as “Other Streaming” includes any high-bandwidth video streaming on television that is not individually broken out.
Hulu Live viewing is included in Hulu, and Youtube viewing includes Youtube TV.
Ecoded Linear Streaming, also known as encoded TV, can be found under the Broadcast or Cable group (linear TV), as well as under Streaming, and other streaming options e.g. Hulu, Youtube TV and other streaming MVPD/vMVPD apps are all included in the Broadcast and Cable groups (linear TV), as well as under Streaming. MVPD is multichannel video programming distributer. This service provides several television channels. vMVPDs distribute linear content (TV), licensed from multiple programming networks. The content is packaged in a subscription-based format that can be accessed on any device with broadband access.
SME Paid Under
Sitetrail Research Team 
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