LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y. — The first mid-year data set from the Advertising Research Foundation DASH TV Universe study has been released, and the data show that more than 30% of households now receive “TV” exclusively through streaming. They have no access to linear free-to-air TV.
At the same time, the percentage of households who receive their connection from an over-the-air antenna grew to 17.1%, one percentage point over FY 2025.
The bigger takeaway, however, are the households identified as “Digital Only” in the ARF’s connection framework. They have no traditional Pay TV, no vMVPD and no TV antennae.
The MY 2026 DASH data set also shows a one percentage point increase in Digital Only households over full-year 2025, bringing the total measured in the combined Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 waves to 30.5%.
“Consistent with trends over the past few years, Linear and Pay TV penetration in general continued to show declines in MY 2026, although the declines appeared to slow,” ARF says. “While this release covers TV connection measures defined by the ARF’s proprietary framework, DASH produces agnostic, ‘bottom-up’ measures to enable licensees to populate their own connection frameworks and to develop universe estimates customized to their businesses and requirements.”
DASH is conducted in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago and employs a national probability sample to produce reliable projections in total U.S. context. DASH also enables definition and profiling of TV consumers on hundreds of demographic and usage characteristics.
