When Tiktok and Youtube (also Facebook Instagram Reels) Kill The TV Stars. The analogy of “Video Killed the Radio Star” is highly relevant to the seismic shift occurring in the US television landscape, mirroring the challenges faced by networks like SCTV and RCTI in Indonesia. Traditional broadcast and cable television in the United States are unequivocally losing viewers, not just to YouTube and TikTok, but more significantly to the explosion of streaming services—a phenomenon often referred to as “cord-cutting.” This is a profound, structural change where the linear, scheduled TV model is being supplanted by an on-demand, customizable, and increasingly fragmented digital ecosystem.
The decline in traditional US television viewership is evident in Nielsen’s measurement reports. For the first time in history, streaming now accounts for a larger share of total TV usage than the combined share of broadcast and cable television. Broadcast network viewership, in particular, has seen consistent and significant declines, hitting new lows in overall share. The audience for core TV, once the undisputed king of mass-reach media, is eroding across nearly all demographics, though older viewers remain the most consistent linear TV audience. The highly sought-after 18-49 age demographic, which advertisers prize, has been migrating to digital platforms even faster than the overall audience.
While subscription streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Max are the primary drivers of this migration, social media platforms—particularly YouTube and TikTok—play a crucial role, especially among younger viewers. YouTube has shown remarkable, steady growth and has become one of the single largest streaming distributors by share of total TV viewing, surpassing many individual broadcast networks. This demonstrates that content creators on YouTube, from long-form news commentators to entertainment channels, are effectively competing with and drawing attention away from established television programming. TikTok, a force for short-form, user-generated video, is also increasingly used by Americans, particularly those under 30, as a regular source for news and entertainment snippets. This platform’s algorithmic nature and capacity for rapid trend dissemination steal attention and “screen time” from the traditional long-form content that sustains linear television. The shift isn’t just about entertainment; social media is now displacing television as the top way many Americans get their news, which was once a staunch stronghold of broadcast networks.
The challenge for US networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX is compounded by the fact that many of their popular shows, once exclusive to the airwaves, are now licensed or funnelled to the networks’ own streaming platforms (e.g., Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock) or rival streamers. This has created a paradoxical situation where the content itself remains in demand, but the original broadcast channel no longer controls the viewing experience or the resulting revenue to the same extent. Viewers, demanding flexibility and control, are abandoning the appointment viewing model of linear TV for the on-demand convenience of digital platforms. The very nature of video consumption has changed, moving from a collective, shared schedule to a personalized, solo, or small-group experience. For traditional US television, the loss of audience share is an ongoing, irreversible trend, making the industry’s primary survival strategy a massive pivot toward becoming “streaming-first” entities themselves, hoping to recapture their audience within a different technological wrapper, but the days of broadcast’s dominance, much like the radio star’s, are fundamentally over.