Nielsen’s The Gauge does not report Pluto TV as a separate line. It counts Pluto inside Paramount Streaming (Paramount+ and Pluto), which reached 2.5% of US TV viewing in December 2025. Pluto’s own share is therefore below 2.5%.
For anyone weighing Pluto TV advertising, that sits inside a market where ad-supported viewing was 74.2% of all TV time in Q4 2025.
How Nielsen reports Pluto TV’s viewing share
The most recent Nielsen release that names Pluto puts it in a combined figure. In the December 2025 Gauge release, Nielsen reported Paramount Streaming at 2.5% of TV, up 10% from November. Nielsen described that total as Paramount+ and Pluto combined. Much of the gain came from Landman on Paramount+, which generated 6.2 billion viewing minutes that month.
Because Nielsen groups the two services, these releases contain no standalone Pluto share. A single figure claiming to be Pluto’s own share of TV would be an estimate at best, or a misreading of the Paramount total. The direction of the combined line is easier to pin down. In the January 2026 Gauge, Nielsen showed Paramount+ and Pluto flat year over year, according to TV Grim Reaper’s summary of the January 2026 Gauge. Over the same period, Tubi gained 0.4 points and Roku 0.9.
The Gauge is a monthly measure of US viewing through a television screen. It does not count phones or laptops, and each month is reported on its own.
Pluto TV next to other free streaming services
Nielsen has published several free-streaming figures, but they cover different months and different groupings. The table keeps each figure with its own period and scope.
| Service or grouping | Share of US TV viewing | Period | Scope note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pluto TV, The Roku Channel and Tubi combined | 5.7% | May 2025 | Nielsen, three free services grouped |
| The Roku Channel | 3.1% | May 2026 | Nielsen Gauge, single service |
| Tubi | 2.3% | May 2026 | Nielsen Gauge, single service |
| Paramount Streaming (Paramount+ and Pluto) | 2.5% | December 2025 | Nielsen Gauge, Pluto combined with a paid service |
The rows can’t be ranked against each other. The May 2025 row groups three free services, the May 2026 rows are single services a year later, and the Paramount row mixes a free service with a subscription one. The fairest reading is that Pluto belongs to the same free-streaming group as Tubi and The Roku Channel but does not get its own Gauge line. For the single-service trends, see our page on Tubi’s share of TV viewing and the Roku viewing share data.
Ad-supported scope: where Pluto TV fits
Pluto TV is a free ad-supported streaming (FAST) service, so every minute watched on it is ad-supported viewing. Nielsen’s Ad Supported Gauge measures that viewing across broadcast, cable, and streaming combined. In the Q4 2025 Ad Supported Gauge, ad-supported TV was 74.2% of all TV viewing.
Nielsen’s 2026 Upfront Planning Guide release added that 74.2% was the highest point of 2025. Ad-supported viewing rose 9% from Q3 2025, while total TV viewing rose 7%, with football and young adults driving the increase. For a comparison point, Nielsen had put ad-supported viewing at 73.6% in Q2 2025.
Younger adults lean ad-supported too. Adults 18 to 49 spend 63.8% of their TV time with ad-supported content, and streaming accounts for 66.7% of that time, according to Nielsen data cited in EMARKETER’s FAQ on FAST.
The Ad Supported Gauge is quarterly and covers all of TV. The Paramount Streaming figure is a single month for two services. Dividing one by the other would not produce a real Pluto share of ad-supported TV. If you’re new to the mechanics of buying ads on these screens, start with how connected TV advertising works.
Streaming’s total share in summer 2026
Streaming took 49.0% of US TV viewing in July 2026, and cable took 18.7%, according to Nielsen’s Gauge as summarized in Adwave’s Q2 2026 cable vs streaming update. In April 2026 the split was 47.6% streaming to 21.6% cable. Our full monthly breakdown of cable vs streaming in Q3 2026 covers the later months.
Nielsen’s 2026 reporting has not followed its usual schedule. It delayed the March 2026 Gauge while it moved to a new measurement approach, so treat each 2026 figure as the month it describes. A July number is a July number, not a Q3 average.
Other signals on Pluto TV’s audience in 2026
Since Nielsen doesn’t give Pluto its own share line, other data helps fill in the picture. These come from company reports and surveys rather than viewing-share measurement, and each one uses a different denominator.
- Paramount says monthly VOD viewership on Pluto TV has grown 70% in 2026, and VOD viewing hours among 18 to 34 year olds rose 91% over the same period.
- On September 23, 2026, Pluto TV launched a rebuilt product on the same technology stack as Paramount+. Paramount called it the company’s largest technology investment since Pluto’s founding 12 years earlier.
- Parks Associates’ May 2026 rankings put Pluto TV near 50 million monthly viewers in US broadband homes, behind Tubi and The Roku Channel.
- Paramount revenue chief Jay Askinasi told TheWrap that “over 65% of Pluto is actually Paramount library content.”
- In its Q4 2025 earnings materials, Paramount reported that direct-to-consumer revenue from non-Paramount+ sources, primarily Pluto, fell 16% year over year, which it attributed to “ongoing monetization headwinds.”
Taken together, Paramount reports a growing audience on Pluto TV but falling revenue from it. A monthly viewer count, a VOD growth rate, and a revenue change each measure something different, and none of them is a share of TV time. For a wider look at where you can buy streaming inventory, see our streaming TV advertising platforms compared.
What Pluto TV’s share means for advertisers
Viewing share measures where people spend attention. It doesn’t measure how much ad inventory exists on a service, what that inventory costs, or whether a particular buyer can get onto it. A small share inside a large ad-supported market can still matter to a local business. The planning question worth asking is which streaming audiences you can reach in your area and budget, not how to buy Pluto specifically.
If Pluto is specifically on your list, our guide to Pluto TV advertising for small businesses covers the basics, and the page on Pluto TV ad formats and buying goes into formats. For budgeting across networks and streaming, see what TV advertising costs.
Adwave takes a broader approach. You paste your website, and Adwave creates the ads and runs them on TV, search, social, and the web from one prepaid daily budget. Campaign creative is included. On Adwave’s pricing page, daily budgets run from $30 to $10,000 with no subscription or contract, and you can review your ads before adding a card. Some channels need a higher budget. Google Search, for example, is listed with the higher budget steps, and TikTok starts at $91/day and requires early-access selection.
Channel delivery depends on more than budget. The Adwave FAQ says your budget, audience size, creative, campaign settings, and content eligibility together determine what can run. Adwave doesn’t guarantee placement on any particular streaming service, Pluto TV among them, and it doesn’t guarantee sales or a return on spend.
Methodology and limits of these figures
Nielsen’s The Gauge measures US viewing through a television screen, reported monthly. Live broadcast and cable content watched through services like YouTube TV or a cable provider’s app counts as linear streaming, and Nielsen excludes it from the streaming category. Nielsen spelled out that exclusion in its November 2025 Gauge release.
Pluto TV is grouped with Paramount+ as Paramount Streaming, so the 2.5% December 2025 figure is a ceiling for Pluto, not Pluto’s own share. Nielsen does publish program-level data for Pluto in its Streaming Top 10. In one recent weekly chart, Major Crimes ranked among the top titles with 666 million minutes across Netflix and Pluto TV. That is a title ranking, not a service share.
Monthly service shares and quarterly ad-supported shares are separate measures and shouldn’t be combined. The March 2026 delay and the move to new measurement mean 2026 months may not compare cleanly with earlier years. Survey user counts, such as Parks Associates’ 50 million monthly viewers, and company growth rates, such as Paramount’s 70% VOD figure, each count people or hours on their own terms and can’t be converted into a share of total TV time.
