The television set accounts for approaching half of in-home YouTube viewing in the United Kingdom, as measured by Barb. YouTube still makes up only a minority of television viewing, but broadcaster programming now accounts for less than 60% of viewing on television. At an industry briefing, Barb presented some further details of their measurement of YouTube viewing on television in the United Kingdom.
In the last week of August 2025, the total reach of YouTube on a television set in the United Kingdom was apparently 21.8 million individuals. That is viewers aged over 4, watching for more than three continuous minutes on a television set, as measured through a Wi-Fi router in panel homes.
Of 200 YouTube channels that Barb set out to measure, the collective reach was 7 million individuals, with the most watched of them being Peppa Pig, reaching 957,000, regularly ranking first. Kids channels made up 12 of the top 20 channels by reach, out of the 200 selected by Barb.
Compare that to the Mr Beast channel, watched by an estimated 127,000 people in the United Kingdom in the last week of August, according to Barb, although it did peak at 325,000 at the end of July.
The television set has become the leading device for in-home viewing of YouTube as measured by Barb through a Wi-Fi router, making up 45% of YouTube viewing, ahead of phones at 29%, tablets at 12%, and computers at 14%. For those aged 4-10, the television set accounts for 61% of YouTube viewing.
All that said, YouTube still makes up only a minority of total television set viewing in the United Kingdom across the population.
Another way to look at that is viewing minutes per day by time of day, which makes it clear that broadcasting programming still dominates peak time viewing, while YouTube viewing is more thinly spread across the day.
Total viewing of video sharing sites on television, that includes YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch, made up less than 10% of measured viewing. That is less than half of the viewing of other online video services like Netflix, Disney, and Amazon.
However, the share of broadcaster programming has fallen to below 60% of television viewing, accounting for around 56% in the last week of August 2025, compared to just over 60% a year previously.