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

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, 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.