A substantial portion of US consumer time spent with streaming video on CTV screens already goes to YouTube. Of the 25% of TV time spent with streaming video, 20% goes to YouTube, making it the second-most-watched digital video platform after Netflix (34% share), per Q2 2020 data from Nielsen. This data comes from Nielsen’s Streaming Meter, a subset of streaming-capable homes from its National TV panel, and only refers to the amount of time people spend “in front of the TV screen.” So, this metric doesn’t include streaming from other devices.
And while the majority of YouTube viewing still happens on mobile devices, it has steadily shifted to CTV screens and away from mobile over the past year. In Q3 2020, OTT/CTV accounted for 34.4% of time spent with YouTube, up from 27.0% in Q4 2019, according to data from digital talent network Collab, which launched media sales last year. Meanwhile, the share of time spent on mobile devices has steadily fallen quarter over quarter, from 49.0% in Q4 2019 to 40.9% in Q3 2020. We expect that some of this shift to viewing YouTube content on CTV screens has been accelerated due to the pandemic, as people have spent more time at home consuming streaming video content.