Climbing The Charts: Which Top Creators Are Growing Watch Time Across Facebook And YouTube?

Every month, Tubular Labs‘ Audience Ratings showcase which brands, media companies and influencers have the most unique viewers, and are generating the most watch-time across Facebook and YouTube. Within the margins, though, are stories about growth—and how those creators are using social video to drive greater reach and minutes watched.

Looking at progressions from May 2021 to June 2021, here were some of the biggest movers among top video creators on Facebook and YouTube:

*While Tubular measures global data, the metics below solely focus on U.S. creators and U.S. audiences.

Media going for gold

In advance of the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, NBC Sports found a captive audience ready to watch content around Olympic sports and athletes, and the publisher leaned into that with its content focus on Team USA, in particular. Despite uploading about 120 fewer videos than usual across Facebook and YouTube in June, NBC Sports grew U.S. watch time from 253.4 million minutes (36th among U.S. media and entertainment creators in May) to 379.5 million minutes in June (15th, using the same lens).

While Conan O’Brien‘s farewell was disappointing to fans, it also spurred a renewed interest in content from Team Coco. U.S. minutes watched jumped from 198.9 million in May (54th among U.S. media & entertainment creators) to 248.1 million in June (33rd), as fans tuned in to get final glimpses of O’Brien’s late-night tenure. It was the most monthly minutes watched for Team Coco in the last year.

True crime also continues to have staying power, and an audience ready to follow along. The BuzzFeed Unsolved Network leans into various types of mysteries, to much success on social video—especially in June.

Minutes watched in the U.S. climbed from 156.6 million in May (84th among U.S. media and entertainment creators) to 230.1 million in June (36th) thanks in part to a video around former Superman

actor George Reeves. By leaning into its typical content focus, while also expanding out to an existing fandom like DC Comics has, Unsolved Network found a hit with one of its most-watched videos of the year.

Brands get into the game-ing

Even without an in-person event this year, E3 still garnered plenty of attention for gaming brands—especially on social video, where many of the typical announcements around new titles and features were taking place. Among viewers in the United States, Nintendo‘s U.S. pages more than doubled minutes watched from 23.0 million (No. 49 among U.S. brands) to 60.5 million in June (No. 12). Along with its typical Nintendo Direct content, the brand uploaded trailers for hotly anticipated titles and new features for existing games in a steady current of news for fans to share.

Competitor Xbox also made the most of its moment. The console increased U.S. watch time by more than 4x in June, growing from 4.7 million minutes watched (253rd among U.S. brands) to 22.8 million (42nd), while uploading more videos to YouTube than it had in any other month in the last three years. Most popular among those was the Forza Horizon 5 trailer.

(Mr)Beast mode

Influencers find ways to grow audiences as well, with some commanding more minutes watched on social video than major media companies.

Despite already being a top-10 U.S. influencer by minutes watched (in the U.S.), MrBeast still saw numbers skyrocket in June, from 957.2 million to 1.4 billion. The rapid ascent moved him from No. 9 to No. 4 among U.S. influencers, and kept him squarely among the top cross-platform creators in the U.S.

For comparison, MrBeast has similar minutes watched numbers in the U.S. to Fox News (across YouTube and Facebook, anyway).