YouTube TV Reaches 5 Million Subscribers

YouTube has announced a new milestone for YouTube TV, with its subscription content service now up to 5 million total subscribers, highlighting the popularity and expansion of the option.

Originally launched back in 2017, in five US markets, YouTube TV is now available in ‘over 99.5% of households in the United States’, providing an alternative to traditional pay TV options, and access to a heap of popular channels and content.

As per YouTube:

“When we launched YouTube TV five years ago, we wanted to make watching TV even more enjoyable – featuring a modern product experience without all the commitments, equipment fees and hassle. YouTube TV is now available nationwide, with more than 100 channels, and features such as unlimited cloud DVR space, Spanish-language content offerings, and a family plan.”

The rising popularity of the option underlines YouTube’s presence in the broader video content sphere, with YouTube’s Connected TV numbers (people watching YouTube content on their home TV set) also rising to 135 million viewers per month.

That’s a lot of entertainment time that YouTube now occupies, for a lot of consumers, which provides some insight into the market presence the platform now commands, a significant note for both creators and advertisers alike.

To mark this latest milestone, YouTube has shared some new YouTube TV usage insights, including the most DVR’d shows (Yellowstone leads the way), the most replayed classic shows (Friends wins this category) and rising sports content (YouTube says that viewership of Formula 1 has doubled over the past year).

It’s another element within YouTube’s broader video content dominance, and while TikTok has become the video platform of the moment, especially among younger audiences, YouTube is still likely to win out as the main video platform of choice for a much broader range of users.