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Is YouTube the King of All Media Companies?
Michael Beach
April 03, 2025
Eight big questions re: YouTube:
1) What share of total TV time does YouTube account for?
2) What does YouTube’s audience look like?
3) What share of total TV time does YouTube TV account for?
4) How does YouTube make money?
5) Is YouTube the king of all media companies?
6) How much advertising revenue does YouTube generate per hour?
7) Is YouTube underbought relative to its share of total TV time?
8) How much would YouTube be worth as a standalone company?
Quick answer: YouTube accounts for 12% of total TV time and 27% of streaming TV time.
Boom: As predicted in SOTS #404, YouTube is the top media company in terms of time spent with convergent TV.
Wow: In 2024, we watched 30.3T minutes (58M years) of convergent TV. Americans spent almost 6M years watching YouTube on a TV!
What does YouTube’s audience look like?
Share of time spent on YouTube by age group according to Nielsen:
1) 18-34 - 21%
2) 50-64 - 20%
3) 35-49 - 19%
4) 2-11 - 17%
5) 65+ - 15%
6) 12-17 - 7%
Wow: Over the past two years, the 65+ demo has almost doubled (↑ 96%) their time spent with YouTube.
Quick answer: YouTube TV accounts for 2.6% of total TV time.
How does YouTube make money?
Source of YouTube revenue (% of total) according to MoffettNathanson:
1) Advertising - $36B (67%)
2) YouTube Premium/Music - $9B (17%)
3) YouTube TV - $8B (15%)
4) Other - $1B (2%)
5) Total - $54B
Is YouTube the king of all media companies?
Quick answer: Not yet, but by the end of 2025, it should be the largest media company in the world by revenue. YouTube accounts for the largest share of time spent on TV in the United States. By 2026, YouTube will probably surpass Comcast/Charter as the #1 pay-TV service in the U.S.
Global media revenue in 2024, according to MoffettNathanson:
1) Disney - $60B
2) YouTube - $54B
Podcast: Is YouTube Eating Hollywood?
How much advertising revenue does YouTube generate per hour?
Revenue per hour by TV content type, according to MoffettNathanson:
1) Linear TV - $0.57
2) Peacock - $0.42
3) WarnerBros Discovery- $0.36
4) Hulu - $0.31
5) Disney+ - $0.28
6) Netflix - $0.27
7) Pluto TV - $0.26
8) YouTube - $0.18
9) Roku Channel - $0.15
10) Tubi - $0.11
Flashback: Who Has the Best Economics in Convergent TV?
Mr. Screens’ take: YouTube's revenue per hour is in the lower range, driven primarily by lower ad prices (CPMs).
YouTube CPMs, according to Needham:
1) Streaming TV - $27
2) Mobile/Desktop - $10
3) Total - $17
Is YouTube underbought relative to its share of total TV time?
Quick answer: Most likely. YouTube’s time spent with TV has grown faster than revenue.
YoY growth:
1) Total TV time - ↑ 25%
2) Ad revenue - ↑ 15%
Bottom line #1: Time spent with streaming TV is growing 69% faster than ad revenue. Ad buyers don’t consider YouTube to be TV.
Quote from Tim Peterson - Executive editor, video & audio @ Digiday:
“Right now, though, YouTube remains a round peg in the rectangular hole of CTV.”
Bottom line #2: Every media company (not named Netflix) would trade places with YouTube in a second. They dominate the most important puzzle piece (consumer attention). All of their problems are solvable through optimization and changes in business practice.
Quote from MoffettNathanson research:
“YouTube has the potential to become the central aggregator for all things professional video, positioning itself to capture a share of the $85 billion consumer Pay TV market and the ~$30 billion streaming ex. Netflix market in the U.S.. On monetization, when comparing YouTube’s massive TV screen engagement to its estimated TV revenue, it remains significantly under-monetized relative to its scaled reach and differentiated offering.”
How much would YouTube be worth as a standalone company?
Quick answer: $550B
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