As Netflix continues to add more content to its streaming service—and millions more paying subscribers each quarter—the company's viewing audience is growing fast enough to draw subjective comparisons to major American TV networks. On Thursday, an investment bank's analysts crunched the numbers and came to a substantial conclusion: Netflix will surpass the top networks' reported Nielsen viewer numbers by next year.

FBR Capital Markets' analysts made the claim while commenting on Netflix's recent seven-to-one stock split, which will go into effect on July 14. FBR believes the streaming company's continuing stock price surge isn't over yet. The analysts, Chase White and Barton Crockett, crunched Netflix's Q1 2015 numbers to estimate a little over two hours of streaming per American customer; in Nielsen terms, that amounts to the service's total, 24-hour content rating of 2.6, which is neck-and-neck with American broadcasters ABC and NBC.

"However, Netflix is growing its ratings at a 40 percent-plus compound annual growth rate; the broadcasters are, on average, declining," the FBR analysts wrote. "At this pace, in a year, Netflix will have a larger 24-hour audience than all broadcast networks."

As Variety points out in its report on the statement, the networks' current Nielsen numbers aren't a perfect comparison point since they don't factor in the networks' own online VOD portals. Still, the rest of the analysts' points hold water and then some. Netflix is trouncing its network and cable rivals in price point and customer surveys, and it's eager to spend for the rights to domestic and international content—FBR said Netflix is spending $2 billion on that, but in its Q1 earnings report, Netflix actually confirmed that sum was a whopping $3 billion.

The only gaping hole in FBR's analysis was any Netflix strides toward live content, a sector that network and cable providers still have a lead on. Only one major online-only competitor has begun to dip its toes into this area: Yahoo Screen.