YouTube says viewers streamed 1 bn+ hours of content daily on TV in 2024

Amid evolving habits and tech advancements, Google-led YouTube says the year 2024 saw a significant increase in people consuming its content on TV globally. The 2024 data as of October 2024, excluding shorts, shows people streamed over 1 billion hours of content daily on TVs.

Describing an increasing interest towards content viewing on TV in 2024, YouTube says it saw the watchtime of sports content on TV grow over 30% year over year, as users visit YouTube to get a lineup of clips, highlights, and post-game interviews.

In 2024, YouTube also piloted "Watch With", which enables creators to provide live commentary, analysis, and real-time reactions to games and events, for their audience. YouTube now aims to bring in more innovation in this area to provide a better experience to sports lovers.

To make YouTube a safe place for children, the global streaming platform says after rolling out an option to easily switch between YouTube and YouTube Kids profiles on TV directly from the YouTube app last year, the company is aiming to "better control". "We’re now introducing a new parent code feature that gives parents the power to prevent kids from accessing content that might not be age-appropriate."

Podcasts and creators were two of the major themes on YouTube TV in 2024. Interestingly, as the lines between audio-only podcasts and videos blur, the company says podcast watching is growing rapidly on TV. "Viewers watched over 400M hours of podcasts monthly on living room devices. They’ve been tuning into podcasts similarly to how one would tune into a late-night talk show."

The company creators are resorting to innovative ways of multimedia storytelling to deepen their onnection with their audiences on YouTube. For example, creator Bailey Sarian's interest in true crime and makeup inspired her to launch "a murder mystery podcast", with makeup tutorials to her over 7.5 million subscribers. "For the true crime aficionados out there, grab your makeup brushes and tune in on Mondays."

The company says creators continue to find success on the biggest screen in the house. "Take Michelle Khare, whose recent premiere of "Challenge Accepted: 90 Black Belt" racked up 2.3 million views in its first few weeks, with more than 40% of those views coming from the living room."

The surge in living room viewership is no accident. The YouTube data shows the share of videos uploaded to the platform in 4K is up by over 35% year over year. As creators prioritise high-quality content targetting TV screens, those making a majority of their revenue from TV is up over 30% YoY, says the company.

To facilitate this growth, YouTube says it recently made it easier for viewers to subscribe to channels on TV by adding the subscribe button directly to the video player, which led to a 40% increase in net subscribers through TVs.