YouTube‘s years-long desire to dominate living room TV viewership seems to be working out.
New Nielsen data shows that from March 27 to April 30, TV viewership on virtually all major streaming platforms–Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon‘s Prime Video, Peacock, Tubi, and Pluto TV–was either down or flat, per Variety.
YouTube’s viewership, meanwhile, was up by 1.5%.
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
That bump made it the most-watched platform on TVs. In the pie chart of overall TV viewership, broadcast TV networks got 23.1% of watchtime, and cable had 31.5%. The rest was divvied up among non-broadcast/cable services, and of those, YouTube was top dog: It had 8.1% of watchtime. Its next closest competitor was Netflix with 6.9% of watchtime, then Hulu with 3.3%, Prime Video with 2.8%, Disney+ with 1.8%, HBO Max with 1.2%, Peacock and Tubi with 1.1% each, and Pluto TV with 0.8%.
“As Nielsen has tracked the emergence and growth of streaming over the past several years, I think many folks have been surprised at YouTube’s popularity on the TV screen,” Brian Fuhrer, SVP of product leadership at Nielsen, said in a statement.
He added that YouTube “consistently draws viewers from broad demographic segments.”
This data comes just in time for YouTube’s 2023 Brandcast, which for the second year in a row is being held at the TV Upfronts rather than its longtime home, the digital-focused NewFronts.
Brandcast goes live 7 p.m. May 17 at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall in New York City.
