YouTube beats Netflix in viewership, Here’s Why

Video streaming platform YouTube broke all records in viewership, beating Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney, as viewing numbers revealed by rating agency Nielsen.

The rating chart unveiled that the Google-owned platform YouTube beats every other platform in viewership in America.

According to Nielsen reports, YouTube accounted for nearly 13% of viewing time as compared with 8% for the biggest video streaming platform, Netflix.

The results came after YouTube’s long streaming wars with Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney for years.

YouTube informed that viewers watched 700 million hours of video podcasts on devices in October 2025—a 75% increase from last year.

According to the research firm Edison, YouTube is also the No. 1 platform for podcast listening, with a healthy lead over Spotify and Apple.

According to the rating agency, YouTube’s growing dominance in television streaming is said to be a conundrum to streaming and entertainment executives who continue to invest tens of billions in scripted and unscripted entertainment to get people to subscribe and watch.

Nielsen also informs that these numbers are just for YouTube, not the YouTube TV subscription service, which features traditional cable networks.

Meanwhile, Netflix responded that the reason it wants to buy and will be able to buy Warner Bros. is YouTube.

With the numbers that YouTube boasts, there is little doubt that the video-sharing platform figures prominently in the ongoing fight between Netflix and Paramount for Warner Bros.

Both Netflix and Paramount are locked in a fierce battle over Warner Bros., with each to spend at least $80 billion to add a trove of movies and TV series that would better position them against YouTube.

Netflix CEO shared in a letter, “Even after combining with Warner Bros., our view share would only move from 8% to 9% in the US—still well behind YouTube (13%) and a potential Paramount-Warner Bros merger (14%).”