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Marcus Johnson: Hey, gang, it's Monday, August 31st. Ross, Ethan, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, a new market podcast made possible by Ewin. I'm Marcus. And joining me for today's conversation we have, uh, two New York people. One of them is our senior digital media analyst, Ross Benes.

Ross Benes: Hey, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson: Hey, fella. And the other is principal forecasting writer, Ethan Cramer-Flood.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Marcus, I can't believe the summer is over. I'm so depressed.

Marcus Johnson: Okay, good. That's a good way to start.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: But, but, now, but I'm here with you.

Marcus Johnson: Uh

Ethan Cramer-Flood: huh. So this is, this is

Marcus Johnson: improving my mood. Oh, thanks. All right. Yeah. Um, good save. Today's fact

Marcus Johnson: What is American's... Americans? Same thing. What is Americans'

Marcus Johnson: favorite fruit? Favorite fruit. Is that the weird... Did I say that right? Who cares? What's their favorite- The apple ... what's your favorite fruit, fruit? The apple. Not yours, but what's, what's America's?

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Uh-

Marcus Johnson: Is this, is this a

Ethan Cramer-Flood: trick question? How can it not be the apple?

Ross Benes: Bananas are so cheap that I feel like they have to be the most consumed.

Marcus Johnson: Ross for the win.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Bananas. But

Marcus Johnson: it's tied first with something else, actually.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Mine

Marcus Johnson: is orange. This is according to YouGov data.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: I'll take oranges, but I feel like that's not it.

Marcus Johnson: Oranges are... Tangerine is eighth.

Ross Benes: Mm.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Tangerine, I mean-

Ross Benes: Is, is apple up there, too?

Marcus Johnson: Uh, no.

Ross Benes: I

Marcus Johnson: mean, if we

Ross Benes: name enough fruit, we'll, we'll

Marcus Johnson: get it.

Marcus Johnson: Gala apples is 12th. Ga- that's a shame.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Gala-

Ross Benes: Oh, they divided them all up? I mean, come on. Well, they, they divide them into species, yeah, like-

Ethan Cramer-Flood: That, that's not fair ...

Marcus Johnson: it is species ... there's,

Ethan Cramer-Flood: like,

Marcus Johnson: 27

Ethan Cramer-Flood: different kinds of popular apples.

Marcus Johnson: Well, like grapes. There's not, there's, like, green grapes and red grapes. Those- but they've been diligent about their research.

Marcus Johnson: Thank you, gentlemen. Unbelievable. Uh, apples, it's been broken up. Pink Lady is nowhere to be seen, so maybe we should just scrap this whole thing. Strawberries.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Oh, yeah,

Marcus Johnson: that's fair. That's a shame, though. They sh- they're not joint first. Watermelon is right behind, so bananas and strawberries are joint first.

Marcus Johnson: Watermelon is next. That's insane. Watermelon's

Ethan Cramer-Flood: pretty seasonal. I mean, eh, I guess so.

Marcus Johnson: Um,

Ross Benes: yeah. Strawberries are so much more expensive than bananas.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Yeah.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah. And then grapes. Grapes. Red and green both tied. Although, no, they're both tied, yeah. Um-

Ethan Cramer-Flood: I think this is fraudulent.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah, 'cause lemons is then lemons is next.

Marcus Johnson: That's fraud. Ahead of pineapple? This is madness. Um, what I did read, though, in an Axios article that banana is, I don't know if you guys have noticed this, banana is the fastest-growing beverage ingredient. I saw that. Oh. Uh,

Ross Benes: flavor.

Marcus Johnson: Oh. Oh, you did? I saw that. Over the past year at restaurants according to Circana Market data.

Marcus Johnson: Carly Mallenbaum, uh, w- of Axios was noting that top chains introduced 100 banana items from July 2025 to July of this year, already more than in any previous full year, with most being non-alcoholic. Things like Starbucks's Iced Banana Bread Matcha and Wawa's, shout out to Victoria who's to edit the show, loves Wawa bananas, uh, Wawa's Banana Bread Coffee.

Marcus Johnson: Do you remember Banana Man?

Ethan Cramer-Flood: No. It was a

Ross Benes: British- I remember the song Banana Man by- This is- ... by Tally Hall, but this is something different.

Marcus Johnson: This is a British animated comedy. It was a tough childhood. Anyway.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: I bet they can look it up on YouTube.

Marcus Johnson: Please don't.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: There's the segue. You like, if

Marcus Johnson: you- I'm giving you a segue, Marcus

Marcus Johnson: you'll change your opinion of

Ethan Cramer-Flood: me. I'm giving you a segue, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson: Thank you. We'll talk about YouTube. Here we go.

Marcus Johnson: All right, so today we're talking about YouTube's complicated relationship with TV. Uh, and Ross, we'll start with this question right out the gate. You've just been doing some research on YouTube. Is YouTube seen more as a social media platform? Is it more with along s- the lines of the Facebooks, the Instagrams, TikToks, or a streaming service?

Marcus Johnson: Do people see it alongside Disney Plus, Netflix, Hulu?

Ross Benes: So it's seen as all those things, but I would argue it's become more of, um, TV service than the others just based off of consumption patterns. The, the TV screen is the most common screen in the US at least for, for YouTube viewing. Um, like, a- and that's a, a big change from where it was several years ago.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Hmm.

Ross Benes: And, and so when you do, you know, more of your viewing on a TV screen, I d- I think that naturally lends itself to being compared to those other services because, um, that's what you see when you, when you open your TV. It's, it's next to all those apps that you named.

Marcus Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Ross Benes: It's, it's different than when you open it on your phone.

Marcus Johnson: Yep. But it's interesting because people have, like, leapfrogged the sec- the, the s- the medium-sized screen, right? Like, it's gone straight from phone to TV. It didn't go phone- ... we want something bigger, laptop, we want something bigger, television.

Ross Benes: Well, laptop and tablet, like, uh, the, the, the usage in so many services is flat to declining.

Ross Benes: Mm-hmm. It's like you, you use your laptop for work, but then a- you know, people aren't using it a ton for video entertainment, um, unless if they don't have a TV. Yeah. If they have a TV, I, I don't think they use the laptop a lot, unless maybe second screening, but-

Marcus Johnson: Yeah ...

Ross Benes: not a primary.

Marcus Johnson: Ethan, it's one of the most, seems, versatile services out there.

Marcus Johnson: Ross wrote in the piece, uh, "It's possible for one person to experience YouTube as a TV, social media, shopping, podcast, search platform, depending on the context that YouTube is being used in at the given moment." You could add music platform, you could add educational tool, and so on and so forth. How do you see YouTube primarily?

Ethan Cramer-Flood: I've been banging the same drum as Ross has, uh, for a while now, mostly because we s- we've been seeing these trends coming, and now they're here. Mm-hmm. So to his point, you know, the, the time spent pivot where now suddenly CTV is actually the leader for YouTube, uh, we saw that coming for a while, and now it's basically, it's in a virtual tie with mobile right now.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Uh, and it will be in the lead by next year, and of, you know, there's the 255 million people in this country watch YouTube. It's overwhelmingly dominant, overwhelmingly popular. 70% of them are watching on CTV. Um, this is no longer really even a debate. Now, you could have an interesting debate about at this moment in time, you know, what is more important.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: There's still, I think, a lot more ad dollars going into the, the mobile side of thing if you interpret the mobile side as the social media side. Maybe that's not even fair interpretation. Hmm. Um, and desktop laptop- Hmm ... is still a part of this. In fact, as you guys were having that conversation, I was like, "I don't know, you're sh- you're showing your youth," because I'm pretty sure in the beginning- YouTube was only desktop laptop, 'cause You- YouTube, uh, precedes- Oh.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: the smartphone revolution. So

Ross Benes: there was a time- Oh, in like 2005 or something.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: There, there was a time when you were only watching it on desktop laptop. Yeah. Then you were almost entirely watching it on mobile, with a little bit- Yeah ... of desktop laptop, and now CTV is stealing from everything, uh, and we'll get to that in a second.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Yeah.

Marcus Johnson: When it started as a dating website. Um, Ross, you can just mention 255 million, I think the number was, US viewers, um, of YouTube. Uh, are there other metrics that illustrate kinda the scale of YouTube's viewership or popularity?

Ross Benes: Well, uh, uh, time spent is the, the main one for me that makes me say they're the most popular streaming service.

Ross Benes: And you can look at basically any estimate, and it'll show YouTube has more time spent than any other streaming service. Like, you can look at our estimate. You can look at the Nielsen Gauge, Comscore, um, or, or survey data, various surveys, uh, you know, ask people how much they use particular streaming service is, and, and YouTube just consistently, uh, comes out on top.

Ross Benes: What, what I find interesting about the, the Nielsen Gauge, and it is gonna come, uh, under adjustment soon, and, and kinda, um-

Marcus Johnson: Hmm ...

Ross Benes: the next update they do, it will give more strength to linear at the expense of streaming. But for now- Interesting ... uh, when they put out the distributor gauge that compares, like, an entire media company's portfolio, YouTube will be either number one or r- number two, depending on, like, what happens with another company at a given moment.

Ross Benes: Uh, and that'll be, like, a whole company it's comparing to, not just a streaming service. Yeah. So when you, when you look at it and you'll see, like, that month, YouTube had more time spent on TV screens, it's only TV screens, it's not even counting their mobile, than, like, all of Disney. Like, that means Disney's- Right

Ross Benes: TV networks and streaming services, um- Wow ... that is very impressive. Mm-hmm. And, um, no other service can replicate that right now. Mm-hmm.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Yeah, I mean that's, that's a sea change. I, I would also mention just on top of that, YouTube doesn't just lead among streaming services, it leads among every single individual platform that we break out.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: So people spend more time with YouTube than they do with, uh, any social media, social network platform, than with Spotify, than with any, any, any individual company.

Marcus Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Um, YouTube is gonna be ranked number one.

Marcus Johnson: Wha- uh, the metric's pretty solid at the moment, but Ross, how, how much is this gonna become distorted?

Marcus Johnson: Because our newsletter writer, Marisa Jones, is pointing out YouTube's updating its criteria for counting a view- Oh ... to the moment a video begins or a user enters a live broadcast, the company just announced. The update puts YouTube view counting system on par with Instagram and TikTok. Talking about where does it, YouTube belong, in social or in streaming.

Marcus Johnson: Uh, she writes, "Though the company did not previously disclose criteria for counting a view, it was generally assumed that the threshold was 30 seconds," TechCrunch notes. Change is likely to significantly inflate YouTube viewership figures, meaning creators could claim millions of views even if their actual audience is considerably smaller.

Marcus Johnson: That makes public view counts a less reliable measure for marketers assessing a creator's popularity because they offer a weaker indication of actual engagement. YouTube does say it will keep an engaged views metric available to creators. What is your take on this change?

Ross Benes: Well, that makes it even more important to look at time spent when you can, 'cause time s- time spent won't be, um, able to be goosed in that way.

Ross Benes: Mm-hmm. If you, if you just look at individual views for a given creator or a video, um, they are, they are going to be inflated. And- It's interesting because YouTube has, um, had to, uh, go against the notion that they aren't TV. Like, like old-school TV buyers will say, "Well, it's- YouTube isn't really TV because it's, you know, user-generated, and they don't sell ads in the same way a- and, like, there's brand safety issues and all these other factors."

Ross Benes: Um, now the biggest way that they aren't TV is, uh, a view that counts immediately when starting is far removed from how a TV viewer would be counted by, like, an average- Mm-hmm ... audience minute, um, you know, measured by an independent firm like Nielsen. Um, but I, I get why they're doing it, like, to be more comparable to the other social media platforms, but it, it's almost like you're moving away from, from being TV.

Ross Benes: Yeah. I, I would just say that, like, marketers need to not buy the hype from a particular publisher or creator on their view count, and dig in more and just see how many actual impressions or, or time spent there were, because social media views don't mean anything. Um, we saw that in, like, Facebook's pivot to video when all these media companies were putting tons of, uh, videos on Facebook and, and they would report that they had billions and billions of views, you know?

Ross Benes: A- and, uh, they weren't able to monetize it 'cause it was, like, metrics that didn't really mean a whole lot. Mm-hmm. So, um, you gotta be a little cautious when changes like this happen.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Yeah, I'm not sure why they're actually doing it. I mean, Ross, you said you sort of understand it in theory, but this just seems like it's gonna make everything more difficult for everyone.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Um, and in particular, when you're talking about what we're here to talk about, which is the CTV and the transition to the, the TV experience, these are longer form, medium to longer form videos. Uh, so you can't, there's absolutely no argument whatsoever that this data point adds any value to anyone. It only just only con- confuses things.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Uh, and, and yeah, I mean, we're gonna be able to talk about the macro level time spent and keep everyone honest on that. But what, what YouTube really needs ultimately probably is for its creators and the individual channels to have their own... Like if, if Nielsen can someday, uh, create ratings for what's the genres or the creators or the channels inside of YouTube in the same way that they do for television shows, um, that would be the sort of ultimate level of transparency.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: But I don't think we're anywhere really close to that.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah, numbers are okay if they're smaller, if they're more accurate. Like it happened to the podcast world when they stopped counting, oh, the thing got downloaded, and that used to be counted as the person viewed it, and then they changed that, and then everyone's numbers started to look smaller, but they also looked more accurate.

Marcus Johnson: And so you would've thought that it would've been okay. I'm surprised this didn't go the other way, that it didn't used to be- ... a second and they bumped it up to 30 seconds to say, "Oh, no, no, a second doesn't really count." That's

Ross Benes: what advertisers would want. They, they- Right ... would want it to, to- Yeah ... be a higher threshold.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Ross Benes: At least TV advertisers.

Marcus Johnson: Right. Let's talk about that for a second, Ross. How, how is YouTube, apart from this, how is YouTube transforming TV ad buying?

Ross Benes: Well, they inject a ton of inventory into the market. That, that might be its, its biggest, um, influence. You know, YouTube's mostly ad-supported. So you're the most popular service, but then you're also mostly, um, ad-supported, and they have a lot of different ad products.

Ross Benes: Like, when you watch YouTube, it's a, a lot different than a TV or even other streaming service when, like, the length of the ads vary so much. Some of them are skippable, some aren't, you know, more shoppable. Um, it feels like everything's kinda being thrown at the wall and, and, and tested. Uh, you know- Mm-hmm

Ross Benes: it's a lot different viewing experience than just, like, 15 and 30-second spots. You know, you usually you can skip after, like, you know, four or five seconds. Um- Mm-hmm. But, uh, I, I find it actually an irritating experience, though, when you have m- smaller breaks but more of them, and your show's just constantly- Mm

Ross Benes: interrupted. You know, if you have- Yeah ... like six breaks in a 12-minute video or something. I mean, that's exaggerated- Yeah ... but, like, s- sometimes it feels actually, uh- It feels like that sometimes ... more interruptive. Yeah.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Mm-hmm. Um, they also, you know, they also, uh, want to get people to buy Premium, um, which begs the question- Hmm

Ethan Cramer-Flood: of what YouTube's ultimate strategy actually is. You know, I don't know how much time we have to talk about it. Their, their subscriber numbers are actually quite healthy, and their subscription revenue numbers are quite healthy. Yeah. It's a whole other side of the platform. I mean, in general, YouTube's doing well all across the board.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: But the fact that they, at least in my experience, constantly push and promote the idea of subscribing to YouTube Premium, which in turn would get rid of the ads, always makes me wonder what they really want. And Ross, maybe, I mean, you're here, so put you on the spot since I can't ask YouTube. Um, you know, we, we focus so much on their ad revenue potential and the under-monetization.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: In fact, they are doing really well, and they are the leading CTV advertising, uh, uh, platform out there. Uh, and, and they're, they're not growing like gangbusters, but they're doing perfectly well. But meanwhile, um, they seem to want everyone to actually go over to Premium, where I'm not gonna see any ads.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: What's the strategy?

Ross Benes: Well, like any, uh, streaming service, it's good to have both options. Like- Mm-hmm ... th- they, they can build a large subscription business without really a ton of effort or, or having to, like, license... They don't license content or, or you know what I mean? So, like, uh, normally someone to build that type of revenue coming straight from consumers' wallets, they'd have to go and produce a bunch of shows and, and get, like, high-end movies that people wanna sign up for.

Ross Benes: YouTube doesn't have to do that. They, they already have all the content there. Um, I, I think it's just a way to, um, diversify where your money's coming from and not become too beholden to, um, a particular source. Uh- Mm ... you know, advertising can be fickle. The market can be, uh, tumultuous at times. Uh, subscription revenue will be more, I think, even if it's not as big of a base, um, more consistent.

Ross Benes: You pi- probably won't see the, the change in subscriber signups that you see in, um, CPMs when, like, the market is having a tough time.

Marcus Johnson: And Ross, aren't they making nearly as much in subscription revenue as Netflix? Did you see, is that in your research? Well,

Ross Benes: yeah, but that's including YouTube TV, so, like, that's a, you know-

Marcus Johnson: Ah, okay.

Marcus Johnson: Okay.

Ross Benes: Yeah, and YouTube TV isn't, like, a, you know, you, you're having to pay as much in carriage fees and, and, you know, everything you need to, to keep that running that- Yeah ... uh, it, it's hard to be very profitable in that. So, um, you could have few- fewer subscribers paying $100 a month can goose that number.

Ross Benes: Yeah,

Marcus Johnson: yeah. Which ad formats are making the most money for YouTube? Do we have that data?

Ross Benes: Well, we have a, I mean, Tin- Tinuiti, um, has published data on that, and they, it's really heavily on skippable ads in the middle of videos. So, um, you know, tho- those skippable ads that me and Ethan were talking about, they- Mm-hmm

Ross Benes: they are the majority. Um- Okay ... mo- most YouTube ads are skippable, and it seems like they're making mo- most of their money from, um, that format, which allows the other ones to be, you know, viewed as more of a, a premium offering when they are scarcer.

Marcus Johnson: Mm-hmm. Um, so YouTube TV, how is it getting on?

Ross Benes: Largest, I mean, well, actually that's

Ross Benes: I was gonna say it's gonna be consistently the largest pay TV operator, but now there, there's the Charter/Cox merger that's probably gonna change all that calculus. Mm. Um, but they are, are consistently the only one that shows any growth in that category. Like, like even the, the digital side, digital pay TV, you, you tend to see like Sling TV or Hulu with Live TV pretty flat, sometimes even declining.

Ross Benes: And, and YouTube, it's not like it's gaining a ton of people. This is still somewhat niche compared to like overall YouTube. But they are the growth in that market when if we show digital pay TV, which are also known as vMVPDs, if we show those, uh, users or revenues increasing, it's usually YouTube driving it, and then they are the majority of that market.

Ross Benes: And then even if you compare them to traditional providers, they're basically at the top, top now with, um, with Charter.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, it might be a little bit much to say that YouTube TV is saving the traditional cable TV, pay TV bundle, um, but they are inexplicably ... Well, not inexplicably. They are doing relatively well considering every other trend that has prevailed for the last 15 years in this space.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: And you can sort of see a vision, a long-term vision where perhaps thanks to this type of format and these types of innovations that the cable TV bundle doesn't ever actually go away, like we would have thought maybe 10 to 20 years from now it would just be gone. But the way that YouTube can package all of this and, you know, has had success with the NFL Sunday Ticket and can start to bundle these services and, you know, maybe YouTube Premium is included, and now you can get Peacock in that also, and it can start to become like this one-stop shop where, yes, the price point is very high, but you could potentially see a lot of value in there if they become

Ethan Cramer-Flood: You know, they, they ultimately want to compete with Amazon- Mm-hmm ... to be, you know, the, the marketplace for streaming. And if they've got this as a part of it, even though it's expensive, if, if all this other stuff comes included at some sort of high price point that still is better than buying things individually, you could see that, uh, particularly, you know, with live sports being what it is and, and its, its ability to sort of prop up, uh, live TV and, and everywhere, um-

Marcus Johnson: Yeah

Ethan Cramer-Flood: this might work. You know, this might stick around for a long time.

Marcus Johnson: Ross, on what Ethan was just saying in terms of sports, you had this quote, uh, it was from March 2026 poll by Looper Insights. "Four in 10 sports streaming professionals anticipate that YouTube will become a full operating system for sports media."

Marcus Johnson: What do they mean there, and what do you think?

Ross Benes: Well, uh, the survey doesn't go beyond like, uh, that, that question- Okay. ... to, to get further in depth. But what, what I, um, what, what I thought they meant is that it's gonna be a place where you can basically- Access everything, and, and YouTube's involved in not just, you know, uh, transmitting, um, sports, uh, channels, but also involved in acquiring sports rights for itself, that it, they're, they're active in sports television in every facet from production to rights to, uh, retransmission of other signals, that if you, you know, really wanna access some sorta live sport, you can go to YouTube, and whether it's through YouTube or YouTube TV or whatever, um, you will be able to get it through them.

Ross Benes: Mm-hmm. That's the way I interpreted it, but, um, I, I feel like some of the interpretation in surveys is a little bit in the eye of the, uh- Yeah ... respondent.

Marcus Johnson: Yeah.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Uh- They also have the possibility of, of putting their big, big, big pockets into the competition for wider sports rights, and YouTube has the advantage.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: So there, there are sensitivities with the transition of our giant sports culture onto streaming because in many cases people don't have access, or they're behind paywalls. You know, you have to sign up for Netflix, or even you have to sign up for Amazon Prime, and then even local politicians might get involved and say, "We can't be putting football in places that people can't see."

Ethan Cramer-Flood: But YouTube is free, and so, I mean, they have a strong argument. If they wanted to go all in on an NFL regular season package, you know, the regular games, the national TV games or the local games, or, uh, the big headline from a couple months ago is their intention to bid for the World Cup next time, right?

Ethan Cramer-Flood: And the fact that anyone can just watch YouTube, they could say, "Hey, we're not, you know, we're, you're not gonna get worse ratings with us. Uh, everything's gonna be fine." Whereas, you know, sometimes sports transitions onto Netflix and the ratings go down. They even, even on Amazon Prime Video the ratings went down.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: But on YouTube you could say like, you go, "Hey, listen to your marketer. Everyone, everyone already watches YouTube on TV, uh, and it's free." Mm-hmm. So if the if the World Cup was there next time, it would be fine, you know? Mm-hmm. And if, if football games were there, basketball games were there, it would be fine.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: And then maybe that's because YouTube themselves ha- have, uh, bought the rights and turned themselves into a sports machine as per the survey question, or maybe it's because they've cut deals with the other providers, like with Peacock, where NBC Universal I think is gonna start, according to the, according to what they're saying, you know, NBCU is gonna have some content just, just flat out on YouTube.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Um, so you know, you, you, again, the vision is there. I could see it working.

Marcus Johnson: An excellent note to end on. Uh, Ross's, uh, research has a ton of, uh, YouTube recommendations for marketers, so go check that out. It's called YouTube Takes on TV 2026: How the Video Service Is Disrupting Traditional TV. Pro+ subscribers can head to, uh, emarcher.com, or link is of course in the show notes.

Marcus Johnson: But, uh, all right, folks, uh, we have a couple of key takeaways, uh, to wrap the episode. Number one, YouTube is updating its criteria for counting a view. To the moment a video begins, so time spent is going to be an even more important engagement metric to pay attention to. Uh, key takeaway number two for the episode, probably the main way YouTube is transforming TV ad buying is by adding a ton of inventory with skippable ads accounting for over 50% of YouTube's, uh, video ad spending.

Marcus Johnson: Uh, Shorts is about 21%. And number three, YouTube TV is leading digital pay TV platforms with about 26 million viewers. That's what we have time for, for today's episode. Thank you first to Ross.

Ross Benes: Thanks, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson: Thank you to Ethan.

Ethan Cramer-Flood: Uh, thanks. I'm gonna go enjoy my last bits of summer, and then- Oh,

Marcus Johnson: my God ...

Ethan Cramer-Flood: I'll n- I'll need you to have me on again to, to improve my

Marcus Johnson: numbers.

Marcus Johnson: Not, not not with this attitude. Absolutely not. We'll see you when it brightens, brightens up next year. Uh, thank you to production crew who's just launched today. Where the hell is Mike? Who was supposed to be here? And to everyone else for listening in to Buy the Numbers: The Marketer Podcast, made possible by AWIN.

Marcus Johnson: Suzy will be here Wednesday talking about kidulting, uh, that trend, and on Friday I'll be back discussing how a landmark social media trial might change Meta.