Nielsen today was released January’s report on viewership usage across linear TV and streaming revealed that YouTube is once again the top streaming service in the US, with 8.6% of views on TV screens. Netflix, meanwhile, saw 7.9% of TV usage. The new data points to YouTube’s dominance of TV streaming and marks 12 consecutive months that the platform has held the top spot.
In a suspension celebrating the achievement, the Google-owned streaming service announced that viewers now watch an average of more than 1 billion hours of YouTube content on their TVs every day, which could indicate a preference for user-generated videos among consumers of USA and not the traditional TV shows. Sixty one percent of Gen Z reported that they prefer user-generated content over other forms of content.
Additionally, creators are seeing an increase in viewership coming from TVs. According to the company, the number of top YouTubers receiving the most watch time on TVs has soared by more than 400%. HopeScope, a creator that rates viral products, specifically saw a 172% jump in TV viewing time in 2023. That could be good news for family-friendly YouTubers who have to compete with TikTok for kids’ attention. According to a recent study, children aged 4 to 18 spent a global average of 112 minutes daily on TikTok in 2023.
While YouTube may have the lead in the living room, TikTok continues to dominate mobile. The short-form video app recently started testing TikTokers’ ability to upload 30-minute videos that could tap YouTube’s toes. TikTok has also entered the spatial reality space, launching a native app on Apple Vision Pro. Meanwhile, YouTube has decided not to create a dedicated app for the device.
YouTube has hit a few other milestones in recent months, including 100 million paying users for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. Additionally, YouTube TV now has over 8 million subscribers and YouTube Shorts recently hit over 70 billion daily views.
