YouTube captured 15.8% of all US television viewing time in August, the highest share Nielsen has ever recorded for the platform.
The figure comes from Nielsen's Media Distributor Gauge for the five-week interval running July 27 through Aug. 30, published Oct. 22. Total TV usage fell 4.4% from July after the FIFA World Cup ended and kids went back to school.
YouTube was the only major platform whose viewing climbed 6% in absolute terms.
YouTube Leads US TV Viewing By A Wide Margin
Share of total US TV watch time, August 2026, %
Bar chart. Share (%). YouTube: Share of TV Time (%) 15.80%. Disney: Share of TV Time (%) 9.30%. Netflix: Share of TV Time (%) 7.70%.
Source: Source: Nielsen Media Distributor Gauge via PPC Land, Media Play News
Disney added 0.4 share points and returned to No. 2 with 9.3% of total TV watch time, while Netflix moved up to No. 3 with 7.7%. Older viewers did part of the work for YouTube, which saw a 9% increase in viewing among adults 50 and older.
The living room is now a third of YouTube's ad business
Alphabet said connected-TV viewing accounted for more than one-third of total YouTube ad revenue globally in the third quarter.
That growing TV footprint sits against slower sales. YouTube ad revenue reached $11.21B in the quarter, up 9.2% from a year earlier and below analyst projections, after growth of 13% in Q2 and 11% in Q1.
Subscriptions are picking up some slack. YouTube passed 150M Music and Premium subscribers globally including trials, and Google's chief business officer Philipp Schindler said subscription revenue is now growing faster than the ad side.
Search growth and ad dollars are drifting apart
Revenue in Alphabet's search and other segment grew 12% to roughly $63B, missing estimates for a second straight quarter, even as the company reported its strongest search query growth in five years.
Search revenue growth has slid from 19% in the first quarter to 17% in the second. Google is seeing lower monetization in AI Mode results, Schindler told analysts.
"This elevates the fear around AI and agentic taking share from Search and YT."
Jordan Klein, Mizuho
Competition for long-form video is arriving at the same time. Meta's Instagram said recently it's testing a format called Features that lets users upload videos as long as 90 minutes, a reversal for an app that avoided long-form for years.
Instagram had already pushed into living rooms a year earlier by letting people watch Reels on their TVs.
Nielsen is applying a one-time methodology adjustment starting with September, and will publish the September and October intervals together later this year.
