Streaming passed just a major milestone: in May 2025, it officially overtakes the cable and was jointly broadcast. This is the kind of moment that should feel like a win for cord-core. And yet, as someone dug the cable years ago, I started feeling something that I did not expect – I miss it.
Streaming has officially overtakes the cable and broadcast the number of audiences.
We have finally reached the tipping point. For the first time in television history, streaming has officially overcome traditional TV watching. As Nielsen’s reportStreaming is now 44.8% of the total TV viewership by May 2025, while broadcasting and cable combined only 44.2%. It is a thin margin, but it is a historical.
However, I feel a little disputed. This is what we all have been predicting for years, right? The unavoidable death of the cable, the rise of everything on-demand everything, and the future where we see, and when we see it. Since 2021, streaming use has exploded 71%, while cable view has decreased by 39%. The number is not a lie – we have collectively voted with our remote control and our wallet.
Netflix dominates streaming scenario, maintaining its position as top streaming service for four straight years. The stage also managed to break the streaming record with its exclusive NFL Games at 2024 on Christmas day. Meanwhile, YouTube has become a full juggler, which represents 12.5% of all television watching in May.
In other words, the era of flipping through channels is officially submerged by algorithms, on-demand menu and autoplay preview. And in fact, it is an impressive milestone. But when all the rest are toasting the end of the cable, I found that I want it back.
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If I could go back on time, I would soon cut the cable.
Not because I think the cable was better, but because streaming -wise -conquests have started feeling as much work.
The fragmentation of streaming has converted the choice into a core
Remember when Netflix was just Netflix? When you can appropriately expect most shows and movies eventually end there? Those days seem like a distant memory. Today’s streaming area has felt like dozens of different services, each one has tried to take out their own pieces of entertainment pie.
Nielsen’s report mentions that the list of streaming platforms with important viewership has expanded up to eleven in 2025 in 2021 in 2021. This is more than doubled in four years. Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Prime Video, Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, Max, Apple TV+, and Pluto TV, Roku TV and Tubi’s increasing list of free advertising services. For me, it is heavy. These are eleven apps, eleven interfaces, eleven memberships-and, in theory, eleven different shows that you are watching half-half at a time.
Our viewing experience has become a complex puzzle considered to simplify. I spend more time to see myself what to see in fact. First of all, I have to remember which service is in which service. Then I have to find out if I am still taking membership of that service. Then I have to decide whether it is worth taking membership of another platform for just one show that I want to see.
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The “Netflix effects” mentioned in the report – where Netflix shows that they become big hits – completely shows this chaos. Show such as suits and young shelden found new viewers on Netflix, even though they broadcast elsewhere else. But as an audience, it just adds another layer of confusion. Where did the show originally come from? Where can I see it next month? Will it still be there?
Free streaming services are growing rapidly – but they feel a lot like cable
Things here become really irony: free advertising-supported streaming services are booming. 5.7% of Pluto TV, Roku Channel, and Tubi Joint Total Total Total TV Watch – Represent more than any individual broadcasting network. These services are growing because they are independent, but they are also growing because they offer something that feels familiar: just the ability to turn on the TV and play some.
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Fast streaming services have become quite popular, and now I can see why.
But in my opinion, these services are only cable TVs with additional stages. You are still watching the advertisement, you are still limited to what program is being done for you, and you are still working with materials that are riding and out of licensing agreements and bicycle. The main difference is that you access it through an app instead of the cable box.
I have recently caught myself using these services, and it is not because the material is necessarily better. Sometimes, I just want to turn on TV and play something without decision making.
Live events and sports still feel better on cable
Despite all the progress in streaming technology, there is still something that improves traditional TV: Live event. By the way, streaming services are happening in live sports – Netflix’s NFL game and NBC’s Olympic streaming streaming on peacocks are good examples – but the experience still seems different.
There is a communal aspect to watch live TV that streaming has not captured considerable. When everyone in your neighborhood is watching the same football (please call it football) at the same time, when you can recite your friends about a commercial during a super bowl, knowing that they saw it, when you see a live event, you can participate in real-time social media conversations about a live event-then something happens when everyone is watching in different plates and the buffalo One has to fight with issues. And sometimes, the entire app may crash under pressure.
Streaming has also made us impatient. We are using to see the whole season, which are waiting for a week between the episodes, they feel archaic. But something was to be said for the appointment television, to wait, for the anticipation and shared cultural moments that came with everyone to see the same thing at the same time.
I still want cable TV back
I know it may look crazy, especially from someone who cuts the cord years ago, but I am starting to remember the cable. It is not an endless channels of overpressed bundles, terrible customer service and infamerial, but its simplicity.
With the cable, you turned on the TV and flipped through the channels until you found to watch anything. You didn’t have to remember the password, worry about whether your internet connection was quite fast, manage many memberships, or in which platform show you wanted to see in the show.
Nielsen’s report states that the dominance of streaming on traditional TV may be temporary, can move back and forth on the basis of weather and what is available. I hope this is true. Not because I want to streaming to fail, rather because I think there is a place for co -existence for both models.
The future of television may not be completely in place about one format. Maybe it is between future and convenience and convenience, to find the right balance between choice and simplicity between the familiar comfort between future and convenience, and to decide someone else that you are going to see tonight.
Till then, I am scrolling here through six apps, trying to remember where I left that one show. You know one. It was a man. Or maybe a dog. No problem.
