Industry Insights: New data from Nielsen, Ampere, and Parks Associates paints a consistent picture: ad-supported streaming is maturing rapidly, audiences are larger than previously measured, and content investment is accelerating to match.
[Variety]
During Netflix’s upfront presentation to advertisers this week, the streamer stated that its ad-supported tier now reaches more than 250 million global monthly active viewers. This is up from 190 million in November 2025, a 31% increase in six months. Furthermore, the company reckons that over 80% of those members watch actively every week.
“If the last couple of years were about proving we’re a durable player, this year is about establishing ourselves as a formidable one,” said Amy Reinhard, the company’s president of advertising, during a presentation to advertisers Wednesday.
However, there is a wrinkle in the numbers. The figure is based on a new Netflix metric of "monthly active viewers” which is defined as members who have watched at least one minute of ads per month, multiplied by the estimated average number of people within a household. All this comes from Netflix's own research rather than third-party measurement entity. This means that it is not directly comparable to the subscriber numbers the company has previously reported. Direct comparison will be possible once Netflix reports its next figures, provided the methodology remains unchanged.
Variety notes that advertisers are interested in Netflix's progress but suggest it is having more success striking sponsorship deals for individual titles than selling sheer volume of inventory.
Looking ahead though, Netflix plans to expand its ad tier to 15 new countries starting in 2027, including Indonesia, Ireland, Netherlands, and Thailand. It will also open new commercial inventory alongside podcasts and vertical video globally, making ads a core part of the offering as it moves into additional formats.
[Nielsen]
Nielsen has completed a three-month trial of its new tools to measure co-viewing, and concluded that it represents a significant step forward in audience measurement accuracy for live television. The initiative uses proprietary smartwatch-style wearable devices that are worn by panel members and passively capture audio from TV broadcasts. This is matched to the content being watched and allows the system to detect all viewers in a room rather than relying on a single logged-in user.
Group viewing at home has long been thought to be undercounted by audience measurement systems, especially for programs such as big sports events which people often watch with friends and family. The results of the trial confirm this. Applied across seven marquee live events, including Super Bowl LX, the Olympics Opening Ceremony, and the NBA All-Star Game, the pilot delivered an average 4.19% uplift in total measured viewers.
Given the increasing popularity of Multiview and Watch Party viewing, Nielsen now plans to incorporate the methodology into official currency measurement for the 2026/2027 television season. It is also working on a separate out-of-home measurement expansion to capture viewing in sports bars etc, and the wearable technology would likely have applications here too.
Drilling down into the numbers, scripted first-run TV orders reached a five-year high of 66 titles, up 27% year-on-year, with the streamer's genre priorities having shifted markedly over that period. Crime & Thriller and Drama continue their remarkable popularity, and now account for 69% of scripted commissions, compared to 35% in Q4 2020. Sci-Fi and Fantasy has fallen from 22% to 8%.
Ampere attributes the shift to production economics and changing consumer preference. Sci-Fi and Fantasy titles took an average of 73 days longer to produce than Crime and Thriller between 2023 and 2025, while Crime and Thriller ranked as viewers' favorite genre globally by Q3 2025, while Sci-Fi and Fantasy had dropped from third to sixth.
The most significant geographic development is in APAC, where Netflix commissioned 62 titles in Q1 2026, its highest quarterly total for the region since Ampere began tracking in 2019 and a 22% increase on Q1 2025. Eighteen of those titles came from Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines alone, reflecting a deliberate push into emerging markets to drive subscriber growth.
Netflix's content investment shows no sign of slowing either. The streamer is reported to be closing in on a $330 million acquisition of Radford Studio Center in Los Angeles, underlining its long-term commitment to original production at scale.
Parks Associates has published its first Top Ten US FAST Services list based on average monthly viewers, compiled from its Streaming Video Tracker, with Tubi, The Roku Channel, and Pluto TV taking the top three positions. The full ranking is: Tubi, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Samsung TV+, XUMO Play, LG Channels, VIX, Local Now, WatchFree+ (Vizio), and Sling Freestream.
Quarterly surveys of 8,000 US internet households find that 46% regularly use FAST services to watch long-form video content.
Parks says this is being driven by subscription fatigue. Consumers are increasingly turning to free, ad-supported alternatives amid rising streaming costs, and with advertisers following audiences into FAST environments, the analysts says that the sector is expected to see continued growth through 2026 and beyond.
“FAST services are no longer a secondary viewing option, they are a central part of the streaming landscape,” said Michael Goodman, Director, Entertainment Research, Parks Associates. “The gap between leaders like Tubi and the rest of the market underscores the importance of content breadth, distribution partnerships, and user experience in driving viewer engagement.”