YouTube Dominates TV Streaming In US, Per Nielsen's Latest Report

In a new report today, Nielsen found that YouTube is once again the overall top streaming service in the U.S., with 8.6% of viewing on television screens. Netflix was a close second at 7.9% of TV usage. TechCrunch reports: In a blog post celebrating the achievement, the Google-owned streaming service announced that viewers now watch a daily average of over 1 billion hours of YouTube content on their televisions, which could indicate that there's a preference for user-generated videos among U.S. consumers rather than traditional TV shows. Sixty-one percent of Gen Z reported that they favor user-generated content over other content formats. [...]

Although YouTube may have precedence in the living room, TikTok continues to dominate on mobile devices. The short-form video app recently began testing the ability for TikTokers to upload 30-minute videos, which could step on YouTube's toes. TikTok also entered the spatial reality space, launching a native app on the Apple Vision Pro. Meanwhile, YouTube decided to not build a dedicated app for the device.

Vertical Video?

[MDMurphy]

If TikTok gets more eyeballs in the living room will people be mounting their TVs in portrait orientation? Will there be mounts to swivel the TV to match the video?

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

I think Congress can rest easy - TikTok has peaked and will start trending downward. The same thing that happened to Facebook is happening to TikTok... older people are taking over the platform.

Re:

[OrangeTide]

YouTube Shorts copies the vertical video format and even plays it in an endless loop. It would be fine if any of the videos on there were designed to be watched in a loop. But no. It's all lazy content that isn't worth anyone's time to watch let alone make.

Re:

[Opportunist]

If I ever encounter a vertical video worth watching, I'll ponder that. Deal?

Re:

[Paradise Pete]

If TikTok gets more eyeballs in the living room will people be mounting their TVs in portrait orientation? Will there be mounts to swivel the TV to match the video?

TikTok has recently started pushing creators to record horizontally. Those videos get more heavily promoted. Maybe they do have plans?

Options

[flmngbrd]

My hometown recently shut down their municipal cable and forced everyone to either stream or get satellite TV. I recommend YouTube TV to the less tech savvy people that needed help setting up their Roku for the first time since they'd always had cable. They can add shows to "record" from their desktop if they don't like trying to navigate everything with the remote. So far it's worked pretty well.

Forced?

[_merlin]

My hometown recently shut down their municipal cable and forced everyone to either stream or get satellite TV.

How did they force you? Don't you have over-the-air VHF/UHF ATSC TV channels? Or failing that, can't you amuse yourself some other way?

who wants to guess the age demographics?

[Kwirl]

From the people i've known, their kids are practically glued to youtube on the tv for hours and hours a day after school watching some pretty sus stuff

Re: who wants to guess the age demographics?

[beelsebob]

While that may be true, thereâ(TM)s plenty of older people watching a ton of YouTube. I can see why too. Iâ(TM)d much rather watch a âveritasiumâ(TM) video than any traditional TV documentary thatâ(TM)s been poorly researched, dumbed down, and then presented by someone with no knowledge or interest in the field. Plus, on YouRube you can fine much content tailored specifically to your interests. No one is going to put a video on using an electron microscope to look at the insides of MEMS devices on the BBC, but on YouTube such things are easily found.

Re:

[RobinH]

I agree, most of my TV screen watching is YouTube (and we have a family premium plan to avoid ads). But it definitely feels like wading through sewage to find the occasional gem. There's a rabbit hole effect that tries to push you to the extremes and it's unsettling. I actually use two different YouTube accounts where I watch stuff that's more science and tech related on one, and more video-game and geo-political stuff on the other, and the feeds are *drastically* different but with low quality misinform

Re: who wants to guess the age demographics?

[beelsebob]

Huh, for me, watching WAI, EA, and LabPadre gets me recommended a bunch of AI voice generated channels spamming inaccurate nonsense about SpaceX.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

From the people i've known, their kids are practically glued to youtube on the tv for hours and hours a day after school watching some pretty sus stuff

What happened to the good old days when I could watch Robots and Mechs blowing up buildings (Transformers, Robotech) or watch armies trying and failing to kill off terrorists (G.I.Joe) or watch a fantasy-space effeminate prince turn into a strong man that was trying to take down a death-cult (He Man), or cat-human hybrids, apparently trying to take down the same death cult (Thurdercats). Nothing sus in my after-school entertainment! Nothing at all!

.

Re:

[jjbenz]

My kid likes watching idiots like Mr. Beast and Unspeakable on youtube. He could sit and watch youtube for hours if we would let him.

With YT without GAFAM watching you

[Plugh]

Thanks to the Invidious [invidious.io] team. And to those who run nodes [invidious.io]. Use some. Support them. But most of all... please. Do not feed the GAFAM.

So how can it "dominate"

[93 Escort Wagon]

... if another service is a "close second"?

YouTube TV

[MDMurphy]

What's a bit annoying is that the article, and the Nielsen page it referenced, didn't differentiate between "YouTube" the free, anybody can submit a video platform, and YouTube TV" the paid, cable-like service. YouTube "classic" might be compared to TikTok, but YouTube TV is more like Hulu. I wouldn't be as surprised to learn that YouTube TV was high on the list for TV vs mobile device viewing, but confusing it, or combining it, with the old school YouTube without details doesn't give the right picture of the situation.

I find "YouTube" a bit arbitrary..

[strUser_Name]

Why not "castcom dominates" or "internet dominates"? YouTube is just a medium, a link in a long chain between content creator and viewer. I would be more interested in content comparison across platforms. The same content might be available on Rumble, BitChute, etc. Who care about the medium? Unless you are talking about aspects like authoritarianism. Then suddenly Rumble > YouTube.

Majority is neverâ¦

[legumes]

Just proves that the majority is never right

Nielsen doesn't mean shit

[sixsixtysix]

They haven't since they stopped using the in-house boxes. Now it is completely opt-in information gathering, as there is no other way they could know, save some backdoor access by the OS developers.