YouTube’s prevalence in the living room is no longer just a shocking Nielsen headline. The tech company revealed in a new blog post that in 2024 alone, global viewers streamed over 1 billion hours of content daily from their living rooms.
Kurt Wilms, senior director of product for YouTube on TV, revealed to TheWrap that the company invested a great deal of time in asking people why they watch YouTube on their TVs versus desktops or phones. Some of the answers harkened back to the entire reason why television is popular in the first place. Users pointed out that watching YouTube on their TVs makes it easier to watch content with family and friends, and that it’s helpful when it comes to background viewing, a common practice when people are doing the dishes or folding their laundry. But one popular reason spoke to how the platform has evolved.
“When a viewer is a big fan of a creator or a piece of content, they want to watch it on the biggest and best screen that they have,” Wilms told TheWrap. “In their house that’s often the TV.”
This year, the biggest categories for YouTube were sports and children’s entertainment. Watch time for sports content grew 30% year-over-year, according to the company, which did not give the exact watch times for either 2023 or 2024. Sports content was defined as the live sporting events the platform streams as well as clips, highlights and post-game interviews.
“YouTube is one of the only places you can go where you can get the complete life cycle of an event,” Wilms explained.
Based on its rising popularity, YouTube has begun piloting its Watch With feature, which will allow creators to provide live commentary, analysis and real-time reactions to games and events. This experience is currently in its early stages but is expected to be released “soon.”
The inspiration for the upcoming Watch With feature came from monitoring user behavior. Wilms’ team noticed that there was an entire community of creators who were already providing commentary for live events. In their polling, YouTube found it wasn’t uncommon for viewers to watch a muted game on one screen while playing the live commentary from a creator on another.
“What we’re going to do with Watch With is we’re going to bring that experience all on the big screen and on one device,” he said.
Another feature that is being released is a new parent code feature. Last year, YouTube gave TV users the option to seamlessly switch between their YouTube and YouTube Kids profiles from the app. After hearing feedback from parents, a code option is being implemented which will help prohibit children from accessing content that might not be age-appropriate. Wilms noted the code addresses a “top parent feedback.”
“One of the beautiful things about building this right into YouTube, at the app level, is it doesn’t matter what device you’re on,” Wilms said. “We’ve seen a lot of growth of family watch time, and we’re going to make it easier and more responsible for parents to use YouTube on the TV.”
This optimization is crucial to the brand as YouTube Kids continues to be a juggernaut for the company. Ms. Rachel’s channel had one of the highest watch times on TVs across YouTube channels in 2024, the company said. Though specific watch times were not given, Ms. Rachel’s channel currently has over 12.7 million subscribers.
It’s not too surprising that sports and children’s TV were big in 2024. What is surprising is the rise of video podcasts in the living room. Viewers watched over 400 million hours of podcasts monthly on their TVs. The blog post likened the consumption to “how one would tune into a late-night talk show.”
Though this rise happened during an election year, Wilms noted that the year-over-year increase wasn’t limited to political podcasts. Instead, it impacted podcasts “across the board” throughout the entire year, ranging from news, comedy and true crime.
YouTube’s creators also witnessed a boost in the living room. For example, influencer and TV host Michelle Khare recently posted a video entitled “Challenge Accepted: 90 Black Belt,” which saw 2.3 million views in its first few weeks. More than 40% of those views came from TV viewership. The creator recently touted the success of her partnership with YouTube at TheWrap’s Power Women Summit in December.
Overall, the number of creators making a majority of their revenue from TV increased more than 30% year over year. That impacted exactly what content was uploaded onto the platform. Uploads of videos in 4K, which YouTube recommends for users looking to expand their TV audience, increased over 35% year over year, excluding Shorts content.
“You’re seeing more creators filming their content, uploading their content in a format that’s native for TV,” Wilms said.
