[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]
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BabyBillion is one week away from a two-month run of uninterrupted dominance in the Global Top 50. The family-friendly hub from India has gotten the most views of any YouTube channel in the world for seven weeks in a row, and it added to that streak by picking up 1.1 billion weekly views during our most recent measurement period.
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The top five channels in the chart all collected at least 794 million weekly views during the third week of April. Four of those channels are from India, which remains the most dominant channel in our rankings.
Will India’s updated news rules affect its surging creators?
In case you haven’t noticed, India has been the biggest thing on YouTube for months now. BabyBillion has been the undisputed #1 in this chart since February, the top ten is filled with South Asian tastemakers, and more than half of the channels in the Top 50 hail from India.
Though India has typically traded places with the U.S. as the most common country in the Global Top 50, current events in 2026 have tipped those scales toward Asia. The war in Iran has had a profound effect on the Indian economy, and many citizens in the world’s most populous nation have been turning to YouTube to consume the latest dispatches from the conflict.
Some public entities have hopped on the YouTube bandwagon as well. The Central Bureau of Communication popped into the Global Top 50 earlier this year, and it continues to reach millions with updates that come directly from the Indian government.
This week, those videos collected 305.2 million weekly views, leading the Central Bureau of Communication to a 43rd-place finish in the Global Top 50. The most-watched short-form upload from the channel’s archive is an appeal to women’s empowerment with more than 226 million total views.
Long story short, it’s a good time to be an Indian outlet that dispenses PSAs on YouTube. That “meta,” however, could be about to change. Recent reports suggest that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology could adjust India’s IT rules by requiring independent news creators to submit to the same oversight that applies to publisher-based content.
Free speech advocates are worried that the changes could affect creators’ ability to report on Indian news without interference from national power brokers. But how would the new rules affect our charts?
On one hand, you could argue that independent news creators aren’t making nearly the same impact in India that publishers are. Channels like the Central Bureau of Communication get more traffic than individual sources for public service announcements and news.
The truth, however, is that all Indian channels have been affected by the surging consumption of news content. Keshav Shahi Vlogs is not a political channel (it’s one of many Indian family vlogs in the Top 50), but it has neared its weekly viewership peak over the past few months, as other Indian channels have risen alongside it.
Data via Gospel Stats
Keshav Shashi Vlogs got 317.1 million weekly views during the third week of April, earning itself a 36th-place finish in the process. The family hub hasn’t seen traffic like that since last November.
Perhaps the proposed reporting rules won’t push national publishers out of the Top 50, but they could cause an overall dip in Indian YouTube traffic. If fewer creators are encouraged to share the news with their subscribers, how many viewers does that leave for the family vlogs?
Channel Distribution
Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:
- India: 26
- United States: 6
- Canada: 3
- Vietnam: 2
- Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, and Taiwan: 1
This week, 40 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.
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