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January has been an interesting month as far as our Global Top 50 is concerned. For the third time in four weeks, there’s a new #1 in our ranking of the most-watched YouTube channels in the world.
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Like so many channels in the Top 50, this week’s #1 is known for short-form videos rather than long-form uploads.
Chart Toppers
Welcome to the top spot, ToRung. The Vietnamese comedian has been rising steadily in our charts over the past two months. He appeared on our radar in December, when he used videos with suggestive thumbnails to make his first top-ten appearance in the Global Top 50. Since then, ToRung has continued to post videos with bizarre teaser images, and (as a result, perhaps) he has continued to rise in our worldwide ranking. He earned his first #1 finish after collecting 698.6 million weekly views. If he keeps up that pace next week, he’ll reach six billion lifetime YouTube views and ten million subscribers.
The channel right behind ToRung was last week’s #1, and it’s still at the top of YouTube in terms of lifetime views and total subscribers. If you’ve observed YouTube trends over the past decade, then you’ll know I’m referring to T-Series, the Indian record label that has become a near-permanent fixture in our charts. This week, T-Series hit its latest round number milestone by reaching 240 billion lifetime views. It hit that unprecedented number thanks to the 637.6 million views it picked up during the week that was.
Diary of 4 holds the #3 spot in the Global Top 50. That sets an all-time high watermark for the Canadian channel, which follows two parents and their two children — hence the name. Diary of 4 is one of many channels that has capitalized on the popularity of family content on YouTube Shorts. With its vast library of short-form content, it added 454.4 million weekly views during the final few days of January. That total put it far behind the chart’s top two finishers, but no other channels could keep up with Diary of 4 and its young short-form stars.
The highest-ranking U.S.-based channel in the Global Top 50 belongs to a pop star who is adding a strange new chapter to his 18-year career. Jason Derulo is still churning out danceable jams, but younger fans may recognize him from his activity on YouTube Shorts. That’s where he shares memes and reacts to some of the most-watched short-form videos in this world. With his trend-based approach, Derulo picked up 421 million weekly views during the measurement period that ended on January 28. We’ll see if he continues to wiggle his way up the charts.
MaviGadget rounds out this week’s global top five. Last week’s U.S. #1 continues to perform well on YouTube Shorts; it counted 416.3 million weekly views in our latest count.
Top Gainers
Thanks to YouTube Shorts, channels that previously made a living on long-form summaries are finding ways to condense their videos even more. Once Minutos is a Spanish-language channel that got its name from its habit of summarizing feature-length productions through 11-minute uploads.
Based on its recent activity, Once Minutos might want to change its name to Once Segundos. Though it previously reeled in millions of views with condensed breakdowns of movies like 127 Hours and Crime of the Century, it has adapted to the short-form meta by sharing brief, fantastical scenes from the world of cinema. If concepts like a magic pen or a city-sized balloon intrigue you, you may find yourself captivated by some of Once Minutos’ most-watched Shorts clips.
The “movie clips on Shorts” is not unique to this particular channel. In the past, we’ve covered creators like Bonku have climbed the Global Top 50 by adopting film-focused distribution strategies. The case of Once Minutos is notable because the Peruvian channel’s Shorts library is outperforming its long-form output by a considerable amount.
Led by its short-form library, Once Minutos reached 30th place in the Global Top 50, making it Peru’s only representative in the ranking. It more than doubled its viewership week-over-week and collected 248.9 million weekly views in all, though it is still waiting to push its all-time YouTube traffic past one billion views.
Some channels take decades to assemble a multiformat arsenal of highly-viewed videos, but Once Minutos has pulled off its double threat in fewer than four years. It only arrived on YouTube in August 2020.
Channel Distribution
Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:
- India: 13 channels in the Top 50.
- United States: 10 channels in the Top 50.
- Pakistan and South Korea: 3 channels in the Top 50.
- Bangladesh, Canada, Japan, and Vietnam: 2 channels in the Top 50.
- Belgium, Brazil, Cyprus, Egypt, El Salvador, Hong Kong, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and United Arab Emirates: 1 channel each in the Top 50.
This week, 36 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.
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