YouTube sets new viewership record; can other streamers catch up?
YouTube sets new viewership record; can other streamers catch up?
YouTube now accounts for almost 12% of all TV viewing, as much as Netflix and Prime Video combined.
The growth of YouTube’s share of overall TV viewing continues to be impressive. Nielsen’s monthly The Gauge report continues to track the success of the platform, and the February edition of that report was released last week. The report found that YouTube set yet another record with its viewership share during the month, and that begs the question of what other streamers can do to catch up — if anything.
Key Details:
- YouTube now accounts for 11.6% of all TV watched.
- That number is essentially the same as Netflix and Prime Video combined.
- A recent survey found that young viewers are finding long-form content through social video platforms.
The Gauge reveals that YouTube was responsible for 11.6% of all TV watched — including broadcast and cable channels — during the month of February. Not accounting for linear TV, nearly 27% of time spent streaming during the month was on YouTube.
The 11.6% of all TV viewed was nearly equivalent to Netflix (8.2%) and Prime Video (3.5%) combined. Those streamers likely aren’t complaining about their viewership share during the month, but they clearly have some work to do to catch up with YouTube.
Click to expand graph.
So, is there anything traditional streaming services can do to help themselves catch up to YouTube? There are some areas where they will likely never even try to compete; short-form video, for example, would seem to be an area where social platforms like YouTube and TikTok reign supreme. Services like Netflix and Disney+ would seem to be unnatural fits for this type of content anyhow.
But there is a way for streamers to harness the power of these social video platforms to bring more viewers to their own services. A recent survey fielded by Ampere Analysis shows that 31% of audiences aged 18 to 24 prefer to watch long-form content they’ve seen advertised on YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms. If streamers want to reach these viewers more often, increasing their ads on these outlets might be a good start.
That alone likely won’t be enough for traditional on-demand services to start catching up to YouTube, but it would be a good start. Either way, there’s little doubt which streaming service currently has a claim to the largest audience share of all TV sources.
Prime Video
Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.