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Marcus Johnson (00:00):

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(00:38):

Hey, gang. It's Friday, March 27th. Ethan, Marisa, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETERS podcast made possible by Rokt. I'm Marcus. Join me for today's conversation. We have two New York-based people. One of them is our principal forecasting writer. We refer to him only as Ethan Cramer-Flood.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (00:55):

Marcus, I'm excited to be here because we're going to be talking about YouTube, and we're going to be on YouTube.

(01:03):

See that synergy? See how we did that?

Marcus Johnson (01:05):

I see what you did. I wish you hadn't. We're also joined by analyst Marisa Jones. Welcome to the show.

Marisa Jones (01:10):

Hi, thank you for having me.

Marcus Johnson (01:11):

A more normal ...

Ethan Cramer-Flood (01:15):

No, I don't do normal greetings.

Marcus Johnson (01:18):

We've noticed. Today's fact.

(01:26):

I don't want to take anything away from this person, but I've got a bone to pick. How antibiotics were discovered/invented? Some would say accidentally. Do they deserve credit? Scottish physician and microbiologist, Alexander Fleming, accidentally discovered penicillin when he left a Petri dish uncovered, which led to it being contaminated with mold, which he noticed killed the bacteria. He realized the mold released a substance that prevented bacteria from growing, which he named penicillin which became the first true antibiotic.

(02:04):

Does he deserve credit?

Ethan Cramer-Flood (02:06):

I remember this from high school biology or possibly from high school history. I don't know. Do you learn that in history, or do you learn that in-

Marcus Johnson (02:12):

Interesting. Both.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (02:15):

Didn't occur to me to withdraw credit.

Marcus Johnson (02:19):

Did he-

Marisa Jones (02:19):

I think he deserves it. I think he still deserves it.

Marcus Johnson (02:23):

It's like Newton and gravity. An apple hit him.

(02:29):

All right.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (02:30):

The gravity thing is [inaudible 00:02:32]-

Marcus Johnson (02:32):

I'm saying I'm less impressed.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (02:34):

Probably the gravity thing had occurred to other people, but the penicillin thing-

Marcus Johnson (02:37):

Exactly.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (02:38):

... that might not have occurred to anyone else ever before.

Marcus Johnson (02:40):

Just the first person to write it down. It's a huge deal. Thank you, Mr. Fleming. I'll shut up now. Anyway, today's real topic. YouTube is the new king of all media, says research firm MoffettNathanson.

(02:57):

All right. YouTube has surpassed Disney to become the world's largest media company by revenue, notes a March Yahoo Finance article. YouTube made $62 billion in revenue last year. Total revenue. Research from MoffettNathanson points out that it passed the Walt Disney Company's media business, which made about $61 billion last year, excluding Disney's experiences division.

(03:26):

Marisa, you just wrote about this milestone. How did this title swap occur?

Marisa Jones (03:32):

Well, I think there's a few factors at play. One, we do have to look at YouTube's kind of dominance in media overall. User base-wise, it really kind of leads. We see close to or approaching three billion users globally. We've noted that it's so big that it surpasses or matches other entire media categories. It's bigger than all subscription OTT viewers as a whole. People are also spending more time with YouTube than they do with platforms like Netflix, Facebook, Instagram who are also thought to be giants in this digital world.

(04:10):

I think the reason behind this massive reach it has and the scale that it has now compared with Disney is looking at the broader shift to digital that we've seen in the past years or decades even. Many of Disney's media properties still rely on linear TV and traditional content and legacy media properties. YouTube, in contrast to that, is digital first. It has been one of the biggest drivers of digital adoption.

(04:40):

And I think there's also a point to be made that anyone can upload content on YouTube. It's great for user-generated content, but that also means it has a breadth of content that pretty much no one can match because anyone can upload anything at any time. Disney's media business, in contrast to that, relies on a specific smaller number of high-budget projects coming out every year. I think the scale of what YouTube offers naturally leads to a wider audience where you can pretty much find anything you want.

Marcus Johnson (05:17):

That brings up questions of how can others compete, which we'll definitely get to. Ethan, what does YouTube achieving this new crown mean to you?

Ethan Cramer-Flood (05:26):

I mean, there is no doubt that they deserve this crown and this title if we are talking about reach and viewership, all to Marisa's points. The numbers are absolutely indisputable. The scale of their viewership is unlike anything the world has ever seen. But, I mean, the reason-

Marcus Johnson (05:40):

But to your credit, you wrote about this in January. You had noted that they were the king of media in January in your report. A bunch of articles now, once we got the data in from how YouTube did in 2025, but you've been on this train.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (05:54):

Well, but I didn't use the phrase king of all media. I would say king of all reach. That's for sure. Well over 250 million in the US and approaching three billion worldwide which is just staggering and almost incomprehensible numbers. But I mean, the reason that YouTube is beating Disney's media operation is the same reason it's beating all of Disney's peer media operations, which is that YouTube is free, and the others aren't.

(06:21):

I mean, this becomes an almost an unfair comparison. When I see the claim that YouTube has become the king of all media because its revenue from that portion has exceeded Disney's revenue, I begin to scratch my head in terms of whether they really deserve that title because there's a company called Meta out there that is social media, and it's going to have about four times as much revenue as YouTube is because their products are also free, and they're going to have way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way more advertising than YouTube is going to have.

(06:58):

This MoffettNathanson study has decided that YouTube is an over-the-top video entertainment platform, which is fine. I agree that it certainly is. But a very large chunk of its $60 billion in revenue can be associated with its social media elements, but for some reason we're disqualifying social media when we want to make the point that how big YouTube is. But if we include social media, it's not that big at all. And it's actually, and one of the points we're going to get to later, by that measure, YouTube's revenue is actually surprisingly low. We would've thought that it would've been higher. This is a debatable point, but I will not rain on the parade in terms of YouTube's scope and scale and reach which is absolutely staggering.

Marcus Johnson (07:43):

Similar to me and Mr. Fleming, Ethan's not impressed.

(07:49):

It depends on the context, right? Out sister company, Business Insider, reporting YouTube made 40 billion in ad revenue in 2025, exceedingly less than 38 billion from its four closest competitors, Disney, Comcast, NBCU, Universal, Paramount, Skydance, and Warner Brothers Discovery, so it's impressive. But to Ethan's point, if you compare that to Meta's revenue, it's about four times as little. Less impressive.

(08:16):

There's a bunch of other milestones or markers in terms of it being the king of media. One of them, Marisa, you actually note that YouTube's the most popular media platform in the US, according to our forecasting team, based on minutes. That's the marker we use?

Ethan Cramer-Flood (08:40):

That is correct.

Marisa Jones (08:40):

Yes.

Marcus Johnson (08:40):

11.4 billion minutes. I think second place is Meta. No, Netflix.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (08:47):

Netflix.

Marcus Johnson (08:48):

Netflix is second with about 10 billion. And then Facebook, about five and a half, and then I think Instagram and TikTok just behind that. Their share of TV time ... Given the reach that they have, maybe it's surprising. I don't know.

(09:07):

Nielsen's gauge measures how much or where people spend their time with TV. YouTube's got 12.5% in the US of all TV time, including streaming and cable and all the stuff. 12.5% all the time we spend watching TV is with YouTube. Netflix is second with 8.8%.

(09:27):

Surprised it's not bigger?

Ethan Cramer-Flood (09:33):

Go ahead, Marisa.

Marisa Jones (09:35):

I'm not necessarily surprised it's not bigger. I still think that's pretty notable given how many options people have to watch on their TV now that YouTube still has a good share of the time spent watching TV and is above all these other platforms that are TV-first experiences, really. Netflix is kind of a TV-first platform. You can watch on your laptop, but it's kind of associated with watching episodes and movies on TV. So that YouTube has really just short videos compared with longer series that you would associate with TV. I think it's still a pretty notable number.

Marcus Johnson (10:15):

That's a good point because Facebook ... There was the question, could it move to mobile? It did very well. And YouTube, it wasn't TV first, and it's become notably TV first. Over half of YouTube viewership.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (10:31):

It is TV first. It's CTV first. Well over 70% of all YouTube viewers are now watching via CTV, and CTV is taking more time than mobile is, although only by a little bit.

(10:46):

The time spent thing becomes very complicated. Now, you're getting into my bailiwick. Because although YouTube is number one, for sure, both among the population and among active users, it still trails regular television. When we say it's leading, what we mean is it's leading among sort of media conglomerates. It's leading on a company level. If you add up all of one company's media properties and another company's media properties, YouTube comes out on top. Although if you add Meta's altogether, it becomes very close. And then Netflix, as you mentioned, is very, very high up there as well. And the rest are trailing by a considerable level.

(11:23):

But traditional TV, from a marketing perspective, it's not necessarily valuable to break it up based on the companies that own the various networks because the decision is usually whether or not to invest in TV or not in TV. And how much money you're going to spend. You're not so much thinking about, well, this network is owned by Disney, and this network is owned by Comcast. You're thinking, how much am I going to put into television? How much am I going to put into live sports on television? And how much am I going to put into digital? And what type of digital? And how much is going to social? And how much is it going to OTT, et cetera like that? There's a bunch of different ways to think about it.

(11:59):

But I do agree that, I mean, YouTube ... I understand. I came out hot criticizing MoffettNathanson for acting like YouTube is just an OTT video platform, but that is how people are treating it now, undoubtedly, but the advertising is a lot more mixed. I just mentioned that 70% plus and most of the time is now going to YouTube CTV, but ad dollars don't reflect that. Only 40% of their ad revenue is coming from CTV. The rest is still heavily mobile, which again is sort of how YouTube is also still social media. I mean, if you consider what YouTube is on a mobile phone to be a stand-in for using it like social media, and if you consider watching YouTube on CTV to be a stand-in for its competitiveness with Disney and the like, then you get a real mixed picture. Most of its money is still coming from the mobile device and things like ...

(12:57):

Think about Shorts. This is YouTube itself is emphasizing shorts as its sort of revenue-generating wave of the future. And that is clearly designed to be social media and to compete with social media, which is somewhat ironic, since everybody else is trying to compete with YouTube on CTV because that actually is probably the higher ceiling. But this is a mixed conversation. If I was Disney, I would also ... When I look at that headline, I'd say, "Well, wait a minute. Is it really YouTube?"

Marcus Johnson (13:28):

It really does depend on how you look at this because in the US at that 12.5% of all TV, that's more than Disney, Paramount, Tubi, Peacock, and Warner Brothers Discovery combined. If they were all one service, people watch more YouTube on their televisions in the US. It was interesting even your report just discusses the number that Marisa mentioned at the beginning, the 2.8 billion YouTube people around the world, and you look at a bunch of different countries in terms of YouTube's penetration. It's high in North America and in a lot of the developed countries, and it is high across the world, but there's still so much room for growth in some of these other countries. They're not nearly at the 80%, 90% that you're seeing in the developed markets.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (14:18):

Right. I mean, there's a strong chance if we came back five years from now and had this exact same conversation, I would have nothing to say because by then YouTube can be so overwhelmingly or ludicrously dominant that there is absolutely no doubt in the world. However, its competitors are going to be doing things too. And I think we're going to talk about that.

Marcus Johnson (14:38):

Let's talk about that now. Marisa, you wrote that YouTube's unmatched scale is pushing media rivals like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney to catch up.

(14:47):

What strategies do you think are most likely to help its competitors like those folks or others to catch up with YouTube?

Marisa Jones (14:54):

I don't believe that there's one single strategy that will help competitors catch up. We're seeing Netflix push into not only video podcasts that will draw in creators and maybe their audiences, but they're also pushing into a vertical video format. Disney+ is experimenting with vertical videos as well. But I don't think one step is going to meaningfully close that gap. I think that, one, investing in multiple different formats that YouTube is already dominating in will be important. But I think beyond that, even if you have all these different formats, you're not going to gain dominance if you can't prove your results.

(15:42):

If you're looking to attract more ad dollars, which YouTube is as well, as we've kind of touched on, but if you're looking to boost revenues through ads, you have to prove that these new initiatives drive actual results because, if Netflix has video podcasts now, that's a cool offering, but if it doesn't do anything for brands, then why invest in that when YouTube is more established in that way with creators?

Marcus Johnson (16:09):

Also, how much is it growing the audience? I mean, the engagement, it could help, but it's kind of amazing when you look at all the different subscription businesses that YouTube's managed to build up. YouTube Premium. YouTube Music. NFL Sunday Ticket. YouTube TV. There's regular YouTube, obviously. They've amassed quite a following across all these different platforms.

Marisa Jones (16:36):

I think, going off that point, beyond gaining and proving results for advertisers, you have to actually offer something that's going to draw in audiences because it's cool Disney+, Netflix now have vertical videos, but why would I choose to watch those when I can watch TikTok or YouTube Shorts? It's cool that they have podcasts now, but YouTube has more podcasts.

(16:58):

What is meaningfully different is what they'll have to prove to really draw in audience interest.

Marcus Johnson (17:06):

All these strategies, Ethan, are quite interesting because no one, at least for now, opens up Netflix to watch podcasts. You open up Netflix. You're watching other things. All those podcasts, I'll try them. Similar with vertical video, no one's opening up the Disney app to watch vertical video. You're watching something else. It's there. I'll try it.

(17:23):

What would you make of some of these strategies from some of those competitors to try to catch up with YouTube? Futile?

Ethan Cramer-Flood (17:27):

It was jarring for me just recently when I opened Netflix for the first time, and on my homepage and the recommended feed, there was just podcast stuff. And some of it I recognize because of course they know me, and somehow it's algorithmically connected, and they've cut this deal with Spotify, so there's my Spotify podcast waiting for me on Netflix, but it doesn't strike me as a needle mover because that's just more content. And frankly, they're talk shows. It's no longer a podcast. Now, it's just here's a section of Netflix that has talk shows, and they're your favorite podcasts. And, sure, maybe I will click on that. I won't say that I won't click on it, but it just feels like just more content on Netflix, and that's what they need to do. They need to keep going on that.

(18:11):

But none of these people, not Disney, Netflix, none of them, are going to really actually compete, or they're never going to catch, they're never really going to compete, with YouTube on total viewership and reach unless they do something radical like dramatically lower their prices or become free. I mean, that's just not going to happen. And I don't think that's the goal. I don't think anyone is sitting around any of these companies saying, "We need to have as many viewers as YouTube," because, obviously, why would that ever happen when you have to pay for one, and you don't have to pay for the other, which again goes back to the real competitor on that side is Instagram and Facebook and TikTok.

(18:45):

Let's say they're not necessarily competing for raw viewership and raw reach. They're instead, as Marisa was saying, they're competing for ad dollars. They're competing for becoming the most attractive option for marketers. And in many ways, YouTube's competitors are already succeeding, which gets back to the other point about why YouTube isn't actually bigger. Its ad business is not growing all that fast compared to basically everyone else we've mentioned.

(19:13):

Netflix already is doing something right. Netflix's ad revenue is growing much, much quicker than YouTube's. Disney+'s ad revenue is growing much quicker than YouTube's. Of course, they're far behind. They have a long way to go. But all of the social media platforms are also growing more quickly than YouTube. Basically, every major digital ad revenue-generator platform in the world is growing more quickly than YouTube. They're already all doing something right because they are drawing more stuff.

(19:41):

Now, YouTube is not doing badly. I don't want anyone to think that that's what I'm saying. They're still growing 10%, 15% revenue per year, but that's trailing most of their major competitors. I mean, if I was a YouTube competitor, I'd say, "Well, we already are on the right track."

Marcus Johnson (19:58):

I was trying to think of so much positive to say about YouTube, especially in this moment with these milestones. Another one I was reading about is the market value. Alex Weprin of the Hollywood Reporter noting MoffettNathanson valued YouTube at between 500 to 560 billion. That's way ahead traditional media companies, and the closest is Netflix around 400 with market cap. There's so many ways, even if you look at our forecast, of course, penetration ... What do people in America use? What kind of media properties? YouTube is way out in front. Netflix at 75%. Netflix a distant second, 62. Facebook, Instagram, and you keep going, back, back quite quickly.

(20:39):

I was trying to think what things are they not doing so well. What could trip them up? One of them even that you-

Ethan Cramer-Flood (20:45):

I mean, I don't dispute that valuation at all. I don't know where it came up with that number, but certainly on pure sort of market cap, if YouTube was an independent company, which it isn't, but if it was, sure. Just because that reach. The potential monetization is just staggering. The fact that they haven't quite cracked the code is what is sort of mysterious or the challenge for the leadership there because they should be generating so much more than they have. And I think maybe even all of us, as YouTube viewers, have experienced the suboptimal nature of some of that ad experience on YouTube. It cuts in. It's a pain in the butt. Everybody hates it. You're watching a video, and someone's in the middle of a sentence, and suddenly there's an ad. They're about to deliver a line of a joke, and suddenly there's an ad. You're in action sequence, and suddenly there's an ad. They haven't figured it out in the way that Amazon has figured it out. Obviously, they haven't figured out in the way that Meta has figured it out.

(21:36):

But if you're just doing a raw valuation, you look at three billion viewers, and you say, "Well, maybe in the future they will figure it out, and this will become as fluid an ad environment as its competitors," well, I mean, the potential is gargantuan.

Marcus Johnson (21:48):

Sleeping giant kind of like WhatsApp. There's such a huge amount of people using it. If you can figure out the monetization piece and turn those taps on ...

Ethan Cramer-Flood (21:55):

And if you want one more positive to say, it's also their subscription business. I think it's probably done even better than people thought it was going to do. I don't know. I can't remember exactly. Maybe Marisa can remember. I can't remember exactly what percentage of that 60 billion, but surprisingly large percentage of it is people paying for premium-

Marcus Johnson (22:11):

I think they say it's 20 [inaudible 00:22:13]-

Ethan Cramer-Flood (22:11):

... [inaudible 00:22:13] in this country-

Marcus Johnson (22:14):

20 is subscription. 40 ad.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (22:17):

That's a whole lot, then. YouTube TV we know about here. That's doing better probably than a lot of people thought, but then especially I think just subscribing to YouTube Premium, and people are really into it. And that's probably to get rid of the ads, frankly. But still, they're doing well.

Marcus Johnson (22:31):

MoffettNathanson was saying that the YouTube TV service, about 10 million subscribers, that could soon overtake pay TV leaders, Charter and Comcast. It's not nothing by any stretch.

(22:45):

Really quickly, I mean, you were writing YouTube is still a top destination for video ad dollars, but it's losing ground. You're basically talking about the share because they're not growing as fast as [inaudible 00:22:54]-

Ethan Cramer-Flood (22:53):

I was talking about the overall share of digital ad spending worldwide and then video ad spending because video-first platforms, like TikTok, are shooting past it, but MoffettNathanson wasn't counting TikTok.

Marcus Johnson (23:08):

Marisa, anything from you in terms of what could trip them up? They're so big. Once the company gets this big, you start thinking maybe antitrust. Or it doesn't seem like a competitor's going to knock them off the perch. Anything you are paying attention to in terms of potential struggles for YouTube down the road?

Marisa Jones (23:26):

I mean, I think the big struggle is just that competition in this space, it's only going to become more saturated. Even if other platforms don't command the same attention YouTube does, people's attention is going to somewhat fragment across all these different competitors.

(23:44):

YouTube replicas, as people or companies like Netflix are doing, looking to mimic YouTube's offerings. It might not be as successful, but that is still a portion of people who might say, "Oh, I'm just going to spend my time on Netflix. I already pay for it." And this is just kind of a benefit. I really think there's not too much threatening YouTube right now. There's a potential for it as the space becomes more saturated, but I do think it's going to kind of hold this position for the foreseeable future.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (24:18):

One risk is if they get classified as social media by legal institutions around the world and then are subject to childhood bans or teen controls or blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever is going to happen, whatever is happening, to the pureplay social media companies. That's a risk. I feel like they're going to dodge that, but that's definitely a risk.

Marisa Jones (24:37):

I think so, too.

Marcus Johnson (24:40):

Officially and officially in the courts, real courts, and the court of public opinion. If social media to the courts, they're going to say, "All right, now young people can't use them for a certain age." And whereas if just in the public, if people are saying, "Oh," because people starting to get a bit of a bad taste in their mouth about social media and how much they're spending, how much time they're spending on these platforms, et cetera, et cetera. And they've been able to disguise or dress up as, "We're video, actually. Don't put us over there with those guys."

Ethan Cramer-Flood (25:11):

We're educational. Kids use us for education.

Marisa Jones (25:16):

We have YouTube Kids.

Marcus Johnson (25:17):

Exactly. How long can that last? We'll see. That's what we have time for for this episode. Thank you so much to my guests today. Thank you to Ethan.

Ethan Cramer-Flood (25:23):

Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson (25:24):

Of course. And to Marisa.

Marisa Jones (25:25):

Thank you. It's always a pleasure.

Marcus Johnson (25:27):

Yes, indeed. Thanks to the whole production crew. We've got Danny and Luigi helping out with this one. Thank you to you guys. And to everyone for listening to Behind the Numbers, EMARKETER's podcast made possible by Rokt, we'll be back on Monday. Of course, happiest of weekends.