US households abandoning traditional television for streaming are rising in number, a trend that bears on how Christian broadcasters reach audiences and measure their reach.
New figures from the Advertising Research Foundation show that 30.5 per cent of US households now receive television exclusively through streaming, up one percentage point in a year, while antenna-only households also rose slightly to 17.1 per cent. The research, based on the DASH TV Universe study, points to a continued decline of traditional pay television in the United States. For Christian broadcasters and media organisations that have long relied on cable and satellite carriage to reach audiences, the shift adds to pressure to secure distribution on streaming platforms. It also affects how such organisations measure and report their own reach, since audience metrics built for linear television describe a shrinking share of households.
Source: ECMS 2026