The Disney Grooming Syndicate has lost the top spot in total television viewing to YouTube.

“YouTube has pulled ahead of Disney in Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge for February, with a 2% increase to a record 11.6% share of time spent watching TV during the month,” reports The Wrap.

“The milestone marks the Alphabet-owned video platform’s best share of TV to date and the second time it topped Nielsen’s list since its launch in November 2023,” the report adds.

YouTube commanded 11.5 percent of TV time. Disney was second with 10 percent. Fox, Netflix, and Paramount rounded out the top five with 8.3 percent, 8.2 percent, and 8.2 percent, respectively.

NBCUniversal is in a close sixth place with 8.1 percent. But then comes the drop-off…

Warner Bros. Discovery, 6.1 percent; Amazon Prime, 3.5 percent; the Roku Channel, 2.1 percent…

Keep in mind, this is about television viewing. Nielsen measures what we watch on our television sets, not our computers. My pretty wife and I watch a lot of YouTube on TV. There are a ton of free movies, including older TV movies you can’t find anywhere else.

People just seem to be discovering the wealth of stuff on YouTube because the time we spend watching YouTube on TV jumped 53 percent in just two years. Those aged 65 and older increased their YouTube viewing on TV by 96 percent. Us old people are finally figuring out how the streaming machine works.

This is interesting:

Despite strong showings by the Super Bowl and the other top telecasts, total broadcast viewing fell by 10% to account for 21.2% of TV,  and cable declined 9% and totaled 23.2% of TV. Sports events viewership fell 54% on broadcast and 42% on cable versus January.

Double-digit declines in broadcast TV viewing and an almost double-digit decline in cable TV viewing is an awful big loss in a single month.

Everything is changing, and for the better. In five years, it will be fascinating to discover how many people moved from cable TV to a streaming subscriber service, and then, finally, to all the free streaming services out there.

Unless you count our internet connection, we pay nothing for TV. There is so much free stuff available through our Roku, there’s no need.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.