CHART: YouTube tops U.S. TV viewership again for the third straight month
This performance suggests a maturing of current viewing patterns, with YouTube leading legacy media companies in the battle for the living room.
Television no longer runs on schedules. Viewers are moving away from traditional programming and turning to content that’s on-demand, personalised, and often created by individuals. That shift has made its way into the living room, and right now, it’s showing up most clearly on YouTube.
According to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge for April 2025, YouTube held 12.4% of total TV viewing in the U.S. That’s its highest share to date and the third straight month it has led the industry. A year ago, it was at 9.6%. In March, it reached 12%. The upward trend isn’t new, but now, it’s becoming hard to ignore.
One reason for the growth is how people watch. YouTube isn’t just something people pull up on their phones anymore. In the first quarter of 2025, internal data shows that TV screens became the most-used device for watching YouTube in the U.S. What started as a platform for quick mobile clips is now taking up a permanent place on the big screen.
That shift is being reinforced by strategic moves. Earlier this month, YouTube announced a deal with the NFL to stream the league’s first-ever Friday night game exclusively. It’s a direct step into live sports, one of the few remaining pillars of traditional TV, putting YouTube in competition with major broadcasters on their own turf.
Still, those broadcasters haven’t disappeared. Disney held second place in April with a 10.7% share, driven by its cross-platform coverage of major sports events like the NFL Draft, NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship, and the NBA Playoffs.
Paramount followed with 8.9%, marking the largest monthly gain among media companies, mostly fueled by CBS affiliate viewership. NBCUniversal came next at 8.2%. Warner Bros. Discovery held 6.7%, lifted by TNT’s coverage of 18 NBA Playoff games and The White Lotus on Max, which pulled in 3.7 billion minutes.
The significance of this shift goes beyond percentages. It’s that the rankings didn’t move at all. This is the first time since Nielsen began this report in late 2023 that the top five media companies held the exact same positions month over month. That kind of consistency suggests the landscape isn’t just shifting, it’s settling.
The fight for the living room is shifting. Viewers are choosing flexible platforms over fixed schedules, creators over channels, and on-demand viewing over linear programming. For now, YouTube is leading that shift and is setting the pace.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
