Image credit: Yasu31 / Shutterstock.com
In a digital landscape where attention spans are shrinking and mobile-first consumption dominates, YouTube Shorts has exploded into a juggernaut. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan took the stage this week and dropped a jaw-dropping statistic: YouTube Shorts now sees 200 billion views per day.
Yes, you read that right—200 billion. That’s nearly three times the 70 billion daily views reported in March 2024, marking a massive 186% year-over-year growth. In a market saturated with short-form video platforms, this sudden and dramatic acceleration underscores YouTube’s dominance not only in long-form content but now, undeniably, in bite-sized vertical videos as well.
This revelation isn’t just a milestone—it’s a clear signal that the landscape of short-form content is shifting in favor of Google’s video empire. TikTok, long considered the pioneer and king of vertical content, has not released its own daily view metrics recently, and perhaps with good reason. In contrast to YouTube’s transparency and scale, ByteDance’s crown jewel appears to be retreating into strategic silence.
While TikTok still boasts an extremely active and global user base, the lack of updated daily viewership numbers casts doubt on how well the platform is competing behind the scenes. Its influence on culture remains significant—trends, music hits, meme virality—but scale and infrastructure matter when platforms compete for global dominance, ad dollars, and creator loyalty.
And scale is where YouTube is simply playing a different game now. Shorts’ 200 billion daily views dwarfs any known competitor figures, potentially by orders of magnitude. This suggests a seismic shift in user behavior—and perhaps, even platform loyalty. Creators, once lured by TikTok’s discoverability and algorithm magic, now see YouTube as a more lucrative, long-term platform. With monetization tools, long-form content integration, and a larger share of advertisers, the incentives are crystal clear.
Moreover, this Shorts boom has implications far beyond mobile content. It’s not just about short clips anymore. YouTube is reinventing how video is consumed across all screens, including the most traditional one: television.
In a second surprise, Mohan revealed another staggering figure: over 1 billion hours of YouTube are now watched on TVs every single day.
That’s not just a flex—that’s a complete paradigm shift. YouTube, once dismissed as a “desktop-first” or “mobile-only” experience, is now the most-watched streaming platform on television screens in the U.S. According to Nielsen’s latest The Gauge report, YouTube accounted for 12.5% of all U.S. TV viewership in May, surpassing Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and even legacy cable broadcasters for the fourth consecutive month.
To understand the magnitude of this, we must consider how far YouTube has come. It was once seen as the “wild west” of the internet—cat videos, random vlogs, meme compilations. Fast forward to 2025, and YouTube has become the dominant force in both new media and traditional broadcast territory.
Mohan highlighted that for more than half of the top 100 most-watched YouTube channels globally, television is now the primary screen viewers are using. Think about that: even in a mobile-first world, YouTube is comfortably inhabiting the largest screen in the house.
What’s brilliant about YouTube’s strategy is its format-agnostic approach. It isn’t betting everything on Shorts, nor is it only investing in traditional long-form videos. Instead, it’s building an ecosystem where all content formats coexist and serve different purposes—all while feeding into the same platform.
Want 60 seconds of punchy, creative content? You’ve got Shorts.
Want a 20-minute deep dive or a 3-hour podcast? There’s long-form video and live streams.
Prefer to watch it on your smart TV? YouTube’s already optimized for that.
Looking for music, tutorials, or movies? It’s all housed under one roof.
This multi-format dominance is something no other platform has fully mastered, and it’s exactly why YouTube is now redefining the very meaning of “TV” in 2025. It’s no longer a box with channels—it’s an open content universe with an algorithm that learns your every move.
Riding high on this momentum, YouTube also teased what could be a defining moment for creator tools: the integration of Veo 3, DeepMind’s next-generation video generation model, into Shorts later this summer.
The soon-to-launch Dream Screen, powered by Veo 3, promises to deliver sharper visuals, smoother transitions, and even synchronized audio—a level of quality that AI-generated content has previously struggled to match. This upgrade could be a game-changer for creators, particularly those looking to elevate the production value of their short-form videos without expensive equipment or software.
Imagine being able to type in a prompt and have YouTube’s AI generate a visually rich background or sequence that feels indistinguishable from high-end animation—all within the Shorts ecosystem. This is the kind of technological leap that could further widen the gap between YouTube and its competitors, who have yet to fully deploy AI-native video creation tools at scale.
All of this is happening in the context of a massive transformation in how audiences consume media. For the first time in history, streaming has overtaken both cable and broadcast combined, according to Nielsen. Streaming now accounts for 44.8% of total TV usage in the U.S., a meteoric rise from just 26% four years ago.
Meanwhile, traditional cable has dropped to 24.1%, and broadcast is at 20.1%. In other words, the old guard is fading fast, and platforms like YouTube are leading the charge into this new era.
Karthik Rao, CEO of Nielsen, summed it up best: “It’s fitting that this inflection point coincides with the four-year anniversary of The Gauge.” What began as a slow, inevitable transition is now a full-scale revolution—and YouTube is not just participating in it, it’s dictating its pace.
This isn’t just about viewers; it’s also about the creators fueling this ecosystem. With the introduction of more sophisticated monetization models, ad revenue sharing, Super Thanks, paid memberships, and now Shorts Fund alternatives, YouTube is cementing itself as the most stable and diversified income platform for video creators.
TikTok, for all its cultural heat, has struggled to offer creators predictable earnings. Its Creator Fund was widely criticized for low payouts, and its platform still relies heavily on brand deals and sponsorships to reward top talent.
By contrast, YouTube offers a more sustainable, scalable monetization path, especially as creators now earn from both long-form and Shorts formats. With YouTube integrating shopping features, live commerce, and branded content tools, the creator-to-customer pipeline is shorter than ever.
What’s clear from all of this is that YouTube is no longer just a platform—it’s becoming an ecosystem that mirrors and outpaces traditional television, all while offering creators unprecedented control and income potential.
For creators, this means more formats, better tools, and higher earning potential.
For advertisers, it’s a scalable, targeted, data-rich environment that rivals television’s reach with the precision of digital marketing.
For viewers, it’s the ultimate convenience—a content buffet optimized for every device, mood, and moment.
And for everyone else? It’s a wake-up call. YouTube isn’t just in the game—it is the game. And as Shorts surges past 200 billion views per day, the platform isn’t just eclipsing its competitors—it’s reshaping how the entire world watches, creates, and engages with video..
