Almost half of YouTube viewership happens on TV screens

Article by Daniel Konstantinovic | May 8, 2023

The news: Nearly half (45%) of all YouTube viewership takes place on TVs, according to internal figures, up from below 30% in 2020. The fast growth has propelled YouTube from a digital-only platform often left out of the conversation of broader entertainment and TV advertising to a direct, major competitor with the world’s largest streaming services.

Time spent watching YouTube on TVs now exceeds any other individual network or streaming service, according to Nielsen data cited by The Information.

A TV powerhouse: YouTube’s viewership on TV screens likely increased as a result of pandemic lockdowns, but it’s far from a fad. The company has been making moves to capture a greater share of connected TV (CTV) audiences, and even before the pandemic, viewership was on the rise.

In March 2020, YouTube viewership on TV screens was up 80% from March 2019, and ad spend was similarly rising. Since then, YouTube has launched a number of quality-of-life features to make the viewing and search experience on TV screens easy, such as allowing the YouTube mobile app to be used as a remote.
Growth isn’t just being driven by YouTube TV, the company’s pay TV offering. In fact, the majority of TV user growth is coming from YouTube’s free, standard service.
User acquisition is extremely costly for streaming services, requiring spending on original content. But that’s an expense YouTube doesn’t have to spare since it’s a user-generated content platform.

Zero to hero: YouTube was often left out of the discussion by advertisers and analysts when comparing streaming services, but a notable change has happened this year. Advertisers expect to spend a larger share of their budgets on YouTube, both across its standard service and YouTube TV.

Though “standard” YouTube is the main driver of growth, even YouTube TV is attracting significant attention. YouTube recently spent a reported $14 billion to acquire the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket, driving an enormous share of the country’s most-watched sport to YouTube TV (YouTube’s pricing makes the weekly game more expensive to view, but it’s cheaper if you subscribe to YouTube TV).
That’s a chunky purchase at a time when streamers are reeling in spending, but the cost is offset by YouTube’s massive overall advertising growth ($15.1 billion in 2019 to $29.2 billion in 2022) and the fact that advertisers are already paying to get on board.
YouTube TV was ranked second (48%) behind Hulu (74%) in an iSpot survey asking advertisers which platforms they planned to allocate spending to during upfront season. According to reporting from The Information, YouTube could land $7 billion in ad commitments during the upfront season.