For twelve months in a row now, YouTube has ranked as the most-watched streaming service on TVs in the United States. This is based on the latest data from Nielsen, which also confirmed that January 13, 2024 was the most-streamed day in history. While YouTube likely helped Jan. 13 reach that milestone, Peacock’s exclusive NFL playoff game was credited with being the main driving force.
According to the data, YouTube accounted for 8.6% of total TV usage in January 2024. This was up from the 8.5% reported in December 2023 and matching the 8.6% reported in January 2023. While it would seem as though YouTube’s market share hasn’t increased much since January 2023, that’s not exactly the case.
Nielsen no longer includes YouTube TV data in with the YouTube category. Even though YouTube TV is part of the wider YouTube ecosystem, Nielsen excludes live TV streaming services, like Hulu Live TV and YouTube TV, from the Streaming category, as well as their respective parent services, like Hulu and YouTube.
Considering live TV streaming service data was included in with parent services back in January 2023, YouTube still managed to rack up the same 8.6% of total TV usage in spite of YouTube TV data having since been removed from the YouTube category
If YouTube TV data was still included, the YouTube lead would be even greater, and especially considering how YouTube TV continues to dominate the live TV streaming subscriber market. Earlier this month, YouTube confirmed there are now more than 8 million YouTube TV subscribers, making it the most popular live TV streaming service in general, and by a wide margin.
Following Nielsen’s confirmation of YouTube’s twelve months at the top, YouTube released its own blog post and, of course, a YouTube video, crediting the platform’s creators as helping YouTube to continually become the most-watched streaming service on TVs in the U.S.
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