YouTube viewers watch 2 billion hours of short-form video on their TVs every month

Short video is a format designed for mobile – these vertically oriented videos are designed to fit the smartphone format. But according to YouTube, this type of content has become very popular on the big screen. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s hard to argue against the data: YouTube viewers watch more than 2 billion hours of YouTube Shorts — the platform’s three-minute clips — on their TVs every month.

“The living room is YouTube’s fastest-growing screen, and the Shorts experience also helps connect viewers to the world’s most active community of creators from the comfort of their couch,” said Kurt Wilms, senior director of product management at YouTube on TV. “We’ve found that audiences increasingly want to watch their favorite content on the biggest screen in the home, whether it’s long-form content, a podcast or a short-form video.”

The living room has become a major growth target for YouTube overall. Viewers in the United States alone watch more than 200 million hours of YouTube content daily. YouTube shows short videos in search results from users watching TV, so even if they don’t set out to watch a one-minute clip on the big screen, they may end up checking out a clip anyway. Google TV, a platform of Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, recently announced a “Short Videos for You” row on the Google TV feed, which should lead to increased viewing time.

Because there’s so much screen real estate when watching a video vertically on a TV, YouTube has updated the viewing experience to display comments alongside the video.

“By customizing Shorts videos for the big screen, we’ve opened up a more immersive way for fans to engage with their favorite content while also creating a massive new stage for creators to reach global audiences and scale their businesses,” Sarah Ali, vice president of product management at YouTube Shorts, said in a press release.

This trend has extended to podcast viewership, even though podcasts are generally an audio-first medium. Broadcast companies are increasingly betting on podcasts to become the new daytime talk show — something people can turn on and watch, but also still get the gist of the matter if they get up to do something else while they’re listening to TV from an adjacent room.

According to YouTube, viewers watched more than 700 million hours of podcasts per month on living room devices in 2025, up from 400 million per month in 2024. Netflix has invested heavily in video podcasts as well, signing deals with iHeartMedia, Barstool Sports, Spotify and other studios to exclusively acquire the video rights to certain shows.