The new TV habit: YouTube on the big screen
YouTube didn’t just edge past traditional TV—this summer it blew the doors off. In July 2025, the platform captured 13.4% of all TV watch-time, its sixth straight month at No. 1 and the largest lead of any media company since Nielsen began reporting this share-of-viewing metric in November 2023. The gap over second-place Disney widened to 4.0 share points, a margin big enough to make programmers and advertisers rethink their playbooks.
What’s changed isn’t just the leaderboard. It’s how people now use their TVs. For years, YouTube was the thing you watched on your phone during a commute. Today, it’s also the thing families stream on a 65-inch screen at night. That shift to the living room has accelerated YouTube’s climb and made the platform look less like a side dish and more like the main course.
Scale is the engine. In 2025, YouTube reports 2.70 billion monthly users—more than a quarter of the world’s population. A decade ago, it was roughly 0.8 billion. Adding 1.9 billion users in that time didn’t just grow an audience; it created a global distribution system for everything from live sports analysis and late-night recaps to DIY repairs, gaming, and kids’ shows. When a platform that big pivots to the TV screen, the market follows.
There’s also the bundle-without-the-bundle effect. YouTube’s traditional app supplies endless on-demand video—creators, music, news, niche shows you won’t find anywhere else—while YouTube TV layers in live channels, local networks, and sports. That one-two punch covers the two reasons people keep paying for TV: live events and comfort programming. Once viewers land there, they tend to stay. The result: steady share gains, even in summer months when streaming competition usually spikes and traditional TV dips.
Demographics matter too. The core of YouTube TV’s 9.4 million subscribers (as of April 2025) sits in the 25–44 range. That’s the group that cut the cord first, then pulled friends and parents along. Younger viewers show up for creators and shorts, then graduate to long-form shows on the big screen. Older viewers come for live news and sports, and find on-demand content that sticks. When one platform meets all those needs, churn falls and daily time spent rises.
Nielsen’s data underscores it: YouTube isn’t just holding the top spot—it’s extending it during periods when pure-play streamers typically benefit. While competitors posted mixed results this summer, YouTube’s lead grew. That suggests two things: viewers are embracing YouTube as their default TV app, and creators are supplying consistent, high-volume programming that refreshes faster than a typical streaming slate.
Follow the money: ads, sports, and the bundle 2.0
If the audience shift is clear, the business shift is louder. YouTube TV generated $8.93 billion in ad revenue in Q1 2025, up about 10.3% year over year. For Google, that’s not just a revenue line—it’s the center of gravity for TV ad budgets moving out of cable. Advertisers want the reach of television and the targeting of digital. YouTube hands them both on connected TVs.
What exactly is pulling ad dollars across? A few things: brand-safe inventory on the big screen, better frequency control than linear TV, and creative formats that work in a living-room setting. Buyers like the ability to manage reach across live channels, creator videos, and music without stitching together five different platforms. For media planners raised on linear reach curves, this is the first time TV feels measurable without losing scale.
Sports is an underrated part of the story. Live rights remain the last defense of the old pay-TV bundle, yet fans increasingly expect to watch wherever they already are. Virtual bundles like YouTube TV solve that by keeping sports inside an app people use every day. Add cloud DVR and no long-term contract and the friction drops. Viewers come for a Sunday game and stay for everything else they can’t get on cable—creator commentary, team podcasts, tactical breakdowns, and highlight channels updating by the hour.
For cord-cutters, the math is simple. They don’t want to pay for boxes, blackout rules, or a bloated channel lineup. They want control. The winning pitch looks like this:
- Live channels and local networks without contracts
- Cloud DVR that actually replaces the set-top box
- Sports and news alongside creator content in one interface
- Profiles, recommendations, and watchlists that travel across devices
- One bill, no installers, and instant cancel if life changes
That flexibility shows up in viewer behavior. People now treat the TV like a giant phone: open the app they use most, pick from live or on-demand, and switch across genres without thinking about networks. Creator-led shows update daily, so there’s always something new. Traditional streamers drop episodes on a schedule. On YouTube, the refresh is constant, which keeps watch-time high.
This is why the July numbers matter more than a headline victory. Summer is usually kinder to streamers that push big original releases while broadcast schedules go light. Instead, YouTube grew its lead. That hints at a deeper change: daily habits are overpowering programming calendars. When your homepage is personalized and new content appears every hour, you don’t need a blockbuster to drive minutes. You just need momentum.
There’s a ripple effect for the rest of the TV economy. Cable and satellite distributors face a tougher retention game as virtual bundles scale. Programmers need to program for algorithms as much as time slots. Sports leagues weigh legacy carriage fees against the audience they can reach in streaming-first homes. And ad buyers are reworking their mixes to make YouTube a baseline buy, not a digital add-on.
The competitive picture is shifting, but not simple. Disney’s second-place position shows power in owning premium libraries and a live TV footprint. Netflix holds cultural hits and global reach, yet lacks broad live programming. Pure-play FAST services have scale but thinner ARPU and weaker targeting. YouTube’s edge is that it blends several models at once: a creator platform, a live bundle, a music service, short-form video, and a global ad machine tied to search and brand demand.
Growth drivers from here look straightforward. More living-room usage as smart TVs become the default. Better sports packaging as rights evolve. Smarter ad formats that feel native to TV. And continued creator investment, where mid-sized publishers—local newsrooms, sports channels, education, lifestyle—treat YouTube as their primary network, not a clip shop. The flywheel spins faster when creators, brands, and viewers all see the TV app as home base.
There are pressure points. Licensing costs for live channels can tighten margins. Managing frequency and ad load on connected TVs is still a work in progress. And when everything lives in one interface, recommendation quality can make or break the session. But those are execution challenges, not strategy flaws. The bigger strategic bet—that the future of TV is a blended experience of live, on-demand, and creator-led content—just cleared another test.
For now, the scoreboard is clear. With 13.4% of TV watch-time in July and six months at the top, YouTube has turned a long-running trend into a new normal. Viewers wanted control, speed, and choice. They found it in a single app that meets them on any screen—especially the biggest one in the house.