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Americans watched YouTube more than any other platform on TVs in February

YouTube’s share of TV usage has increased 53% in the last two years, per Nielsen.

Tom Jones

When it first landed on Apple devices, the YouTube app icon was a little, beige, vintage-looking cartoon TV. It stuck with that for years before eventually distancing itself from the older, more familiar medium, switching in its distinctive red play button — an icon that’s gently seared itself into the minds of billions.

Now, years on, YouTube seems to be taking over the medium it once mimicked.

Big(ger) screen

According to February data from Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge report, YouTube was the most-watched platform across US televisions, taking an 11.6% share of screen time and topping the distributor list for only the second time since Nielsen began tracking the data.

Put another way: Americans watched YouTube on their TVs more than anything else — more than Disney (and all of its entities), NBC, Paramount, Fox, Netflix. Everything.

YouTube TV share chart
Sherwood News

YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006, having clinched the top spot again underscores the growing shift in how people are consuming content from the platform, with its CEO last month confirming that people are watching on their TVs more than their phones for the first time.

Apart from the two YouTube instances and a high jump from NBC during its Olympics coverage, which saw the company take a record 13.4% share of TV usage in August last year, the Walt Disney Company has been winning the war for American eyeballs, with channels like ESPN, ABC, and its streaming services all counting toward its overall share. Indeed, thanks mostly to the ESPN-aired College Football Playoffs, Disney made up 12% of TV usage in January — its highest monthly total so far. 

While Nielsen has made only distributor figures from November 2023 onward public, it revealed that YouTube accounted for just 7.9% of American TV viewing time in February 2023, meaning the number of us who’ve been switching on our TV sets to tune in to the latest offerings from Mr Beast et al. has jumped 53% in just two years.

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Report: Anthropic cuts off xAI’s access to its models for coding

Competition between the top AI companies is fierce. Top employees are being poached, and companies are training their AI on competitors’ models to stay ahead of the pack.

Anthropic is taking steps to make sure it’s not helping the competition in any way. According to tech reporter Kylie Robison, this week Anthropic cut access to xAI developers who were using its Claude models for coding via the popular Cursor AI coding tool.

Robison reports that xAI cofounder Tony Wu told his team in an email:
“This is a both bad and good news. We will get a hit on productivity, but it rly pushes us to develop our own coding product / models.”

Robison reports that xAI cofounder Tony Wu told his team in an email:
“This is a both bad and good news. We will get a hit on productivity, but it rly pushes us to develop our own coding product / models.”

tech

xAI’s revenue is growing, but so are its staggering losses

Good news: xAI’s revenue nearly doubled to $107 million in the third quarter compared to the second.

Bad news: Its net losses grew to $1.46 billion in Q3, up from $1 billion in the first quarter, and more than 13x revenue, Bloomberg reports.

The company, which is currently worth north of $230 billion, is burning through staggering amounts of cash — nearly a billion dollars a month — in service of building data centers and developing what it calls “self-sufficient” AI that can one day power robots like Tesla’s Optimus. Meanwhile, its revenue still looks more like that of a midsize startup than a tech giant.

Despite receiving more yes than no votes, Tesla’s board didn’t approve a shareholder proposal to invest in xAI, leaving a more formal relationship between the companies unresolved, even as xAI continues to burn cash at a pace that will require steady access to outside capital.

Of course, Elon Musk’s AI company is already deeply financially intertwined with his EV company. In 2024, xAI spent nearly $200 million, largely on Tesla Megapack batteries — a figure that appears to have grown significantly in 2025.

The company, which is currently worth north of $230 billion, is burning through staggering amounts of cash — nearly a billion dollars a month — in service of building data centers and developing what it calls “self-sufficient” AI that can one day power robots like Tesla’s Optimus. Meanwhile, its revenue still looks more like that of a midsize startup than a tech giant.

Despite receiving more yes than no votes, Tesla’s board didn’t approve a shareholder proposal to invest in xAI, leaving a more formal relationship between the companies unresolved, even as xAI continues to burn cash at a pace that will require steady access to outside capital.

Of course, Elon Musk’s AI company is already deeply financially intertwined with his EV company. In 2024, xAI spent nearly $200 million, largely on Tesla Megapack batteries — a figure that appears to have grown significantly in 2025.

tech

Apple’s hardware chief is the front-runner to be the next CEO

The New York Times is the latest news organization to cite Apple sources who think the company’s hardware chief, John Ternus, will be the one to fill CEO Tim Cook’s shoes. Citing people close to Apple, the publication reports that Cook is “tired and would like to reduce his workload” and that 50-year-old Ternus is the most likely to take his place, as the company accelerates its succession planning.

The Times is in good company. Both the Financial Times and Bloomberg have previously said Ternus is the top pick to succeed Cook at the helm of the tech giant, and Ternus is currently enjoying the top spot on prediction markets. His market-implied odds of being the next CEO are currently above 60% on both Polymarket and Kalshi event contracts.

The Times is in good company. Both the Financial Times and Bloomberg have previously said Ternus is the top pick to succeed Cook at the helm of the tech giant, and Ternus is currently enjoying the top spot on prediction markets. His market-implied odds of being the next CEO are currently above 60% on both Polymarket and Kalshi event contracts.

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