Despite the lure of big-budget shows and major Hollywood movies, the vast majority of Australians are still choosing to watch free-to-air television each night.

The surprising find emerged in the newly released Oztam quarterly Streamscape report, the first of promised regular glimpses into the viewing habits in Australia across free TV, broadcast video on demand (BVOD) and streaming services.

Measuring total minutes viewed from a sample of 5250 homes, across Australia, the report covers the first three months of 2025.

While measuring all forms of streaming and non-streaming entertainment, the survey covers only connected television sets and doesn’t account for viewing on laptops, tablets, mobile phones or other devices.

The data shows that, on connected TVs, 61.5 per cent of viewing occurs across the linear broadcast TV channels, or traditional free-to-air television.

The free-to-air networks’ BVOD services – including ABC iView, 9Now, 10Play, 7plus, and SBS On Demand – account for just 8.4 per cent of the TV audience.

The major paid streaming platforms, meanwhile, attract 30.1 per cent of TV viewing.

Of the streamers, Netflix is the clear market leader with 9.3 per cent of total viewing, with YouTube surprisingly making up 7.7 per cent.

Disney+ and Amazon’s Prime Video each account for 2.3 per cent, with all the other services – including Paramount+, Stan, Kayo Sports, Apple TV+ and Britbox – together attracting the remaining 8.5 per cent.

Unsurprisingly, the  report found younger viewers were much bigger consumers of streaming platforms, YouTube and free streaming apps. Traditional broadcast TV was still the preferred choice of older viewers.

Source: Oztam

However, Oztam found that almost a quarter (23 per cent) of the surveyed TV sets were not connected to the internet – a figure expected to change as more homes are built without TV aerials and viewers embrace smart TVs.

Oztam CEO Karen Halligan said Streamscape – which is modelled on US monthly report The Gauge – was a “game-changer for the [media] industry”.

Halligan told Nine Newspapers that YouTube and Netflix were more aggressively broadcasting sporting events in the US, which may account for some of the difference in figures.

“We haven’t seen that here yet,” she said. “That might change.”

The May figures from Nielsen’s US The Gauge report showed a different story among US viewers.

In the US, streaming was the clear winner with 44.8 per cent of the audience, followed by cable television at 24.1 per cent, traditional TV at 20.1 per cent and other (all other TV usage that doesn’t fall into the previous categories) at 10.9 per cent.

The Gauge found that YouTube dominated US TV streaming with 12.5 per cent of viewing, followed by Netflix at 7.5 per cent.

Oztam says the quarterly report will continue to evolve “with future updates set to further expand demographic granularity and incorporate viewing on additional connected devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers”.

Oztam – jointly owned by the Seven, Nine and Ten networks – signed with Netflix in May to have its audience independently measured and reported.

At the time, Heidi Monro, Netflix ANZ senior manager of advertising sales said Netflix had included its own measurements of its top 10 weekly lists and engagement reports, “but we think now is the time to go further in Australia”.