YouTube viewers watch 2 billion shorts on TV every month

Short video is a format designed for mobile – these direct videos are designed to fit the mobile phone screen. But according to YouTube, this kind of content has become more popular on the big screen. It seems counterintuitive, but the facts are hard to argue with: YouTube viewers are in charge 2 billion hours of YouTube Shorts – platform videos that last three minutes – on TV every month.

“The Living Room is the fastest-growing program on YouTube, and the Shorts feature is helping to connect viewers with the world’s most passionate creators from their couch,” said Kurt Wilms, YouTube’s senior director of YouTube TV. “We’ve found that audiences are eager to watch their favorite content on the biggest screen at home, whether it’s long-form, podcast, or short.”

Social media has become a major target for YouTube as a whole. US viewers alone watch over 200 million hours of YouTube every day. YouTube shows clips in the search results from users watching on TV, so even if they haven’t started watching a video on the big screen, they can watch one. Google TV, a platform from YouTube’s parent company Alphabet, has recently announced “Your Short Films” search on the Google TV feed, which should improve viewing time.

Because there’s so much extra space available when you’re watching a standalone video on television, YouTube has changed its viewport to show comments alongside the video.

“By developing Shorts for the big screen, we opened up a deeper way for fans to do what they love and created a new platform for creators to reach people around the world and grow their businesses,” said Sarah Ali, VP of marketing at YouTube Shorts, in a press release.

This has come to an end watching a podcasteven podcasts often serve as background music. Streaming companies are betting big on podcasts to become the new daytime talk show — something people can turn on and watch but also get points if they get up to do something else while listening to television in the living room next door.

According to YouTube, viewers watched 700 million hours of podcasts each month on living room devices in 2025, up from 400 million per month in 2024. Netflix has invested heavily in video content as well — it signed deals with iHeartMedia, Barstool Sports, Spotify, and other studios to acquire video rights for other shows.