Tag: Youtube

Who’s Winning the Podcast Game on YouTube? A New List Offers Some Surprises
You may remember Tony Hinchcliffe as the stand-up comedian who, last fall, maligned the island of Puerto Rico in an inflammatory set during a rally in New York for the Trump presidential campaign.
Despite the criticism for those comments, Mr. Hinchcliffe landed a Netflix deal in March for three specials based on his long-running live comedy podcast, “Kill Tony.” That show is ranked modestly at No. 51 on Spotify and No. 178 on Apple Podcasts’ top charts, which track the most popular podcasts in the United States based on a combination of various factors: streams, downloads, subscribers and other mystery metrics.
Yet a new chart, released Thursday, offers new hints about Mr. Hinchcliffe’s mass appeal. For the first time, YouTube has published its ranking of top podcasts in the United States, offering a fresh perspective on a sprawling landscape.
There, “Kill Tony” is ranked No. 2, just below the reigning king of podcasts, Joe Rogan.
Top Podcasts by Platform
Top Podcasts by Platform
Data as of May 15 · Source: Platform listings · By The New York Times

Another major difference from the Spotify and Apple charts: Many popular and well-established podcasts did not make YouTube’s top 100 ranking, which is based on overall watch time. Among the missing: “Call Her Daddy,” “Crime Junkie,” “SmartLess,” “The Daily” and “New Heights,” all frequently in the top 10 of various quarterly or annual lists.
There were familiar names on YouTube’s list, including MeidasTouch, Shannon Sharpe and Theo Von in the top 10. But when compared with the existing charts, YouTube’s version sometimes seems like a fun house mirror. While the hit podcast “Dateline NBC,” for example, was absent — it does not regularly upload episodes to YouTube — the CBS true-crime newsmagazine “48 Hours” appeared at No. 4.
Theo Von and Donald J. Trump last year on an episode of Mr. Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast show. (Theo Von/YouTube)
Ben Meiselas, co-founder of MeidasTouch. (Michael Lewis/Variety)
Shannon Sharpe, a former N.F.L. player, is among podcast hosts with spots in the top 10 on YouTube. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
Despite its roots in video, YouTube has come to dominate podcasting. It is the preferred service for one-third of weekly podcast listeners in the United States, capturing more users than Spotify or Apple Podcasts, according to Edison Research. But that happened only in recent years, in conjunction with the growing popularity of video podcasts.
“They saw something other people didn’t in video,” said Brett Meiselas, a founder of MeidasTouch, comparing YouTube against the other platforms, which are now trying to attract more video creators and viewers. Mr. Meiselas, who said the chart was “a long time coming,” was pleased but not entirely surprised by his show’s No. 5 spot: “It means our work is getting out there.”
As podcasts broadly continue to rise in influence — helping to sell products, find voters and spread hot-button ideas — YouTube’s chart represents another tool for understanding who holds sway with American consumers.
It is a way to “help audiences and podcasters alike understand who is shaping that conversation,” said Brandon Feldman, the director of news, civics and podcast partnerships at YouTube. The chart can also serve as “inspiration,” or “a guide” to success for other podcasters looking to increase their audience size, he added. The ranking will be updated every Wednesday.
Mr. Hinchcliffe’s success, for example, embodies the “cultural zeitgeist,” Mr. Feldman said: “The audience is showing us what they’re looking for.” (Anti-woke comedy is Mr. Hinchcliffe’s specialty.)
The chart also comes as podcast platforms inch toward some more transparency in their metrics.
Spotify recently announced a feature that reveals how many times a podcast episode has been played. But historically, podcast platforms and producers have closely guarded their streaming and download numbers. YouTube is an exception, having published view counts long before it became a podcast destination. (It now claims to reach one billion podcast users per month.)
The big shows missing from YouTube’s chart could still join in the coming weeks. But for some podcasts, this may require a deeper investment in video — or, at the very least, ensuring their videos are correctly organized into YouTube playlists, which is critical to the ranking, Mr. Feldman said.
Joe Rogan at President Trump’s inauguration in January. (Pool photo/Saul Loeb)
Charts are imperfect measuring sticks, susceptible to manipulation, lacking in transparency and calibrated more as snapshots of current popularity rather than overall popularity.
Mr. Rogan, for example, moves up and down the rankings, but no show has ever come close to drawing his total audience. (Hosts who have managed to unseat his position on the charts include Kylie Kelce, who does not appear on YouTube’s top 100 list, and Mel Robbins, who is ranked at No. 76.)
Kylie Kelce attends an Eagles Autism Foundation event in Philadelphia, on June 13, 2024. (Michael Simon / Getty Images for HP Inc. file)
The millionaire TV personality pointed out that 20-year-olds are living through a recession, workforce changes, and unfair scrutiny from leaders. (Heidi Gutman / Getty Images)
But platforms benefit when new names rise to the top, said Melissa Kiesche, senior vice president of Edison Research, which has built its own list of podcast rankings based on surveys. “They don’t want to see Joe Rogan at No. 1 every single week forever,” she said. Discovery drives more listening hours.
Sometimes that discovery applies to household names, too. YouTube’s top 50 included podcasts from legacy television brands such as “NBC Nightly News,” “60 Minutes” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”
Mr. Feldman characterized the chart, where Gen Z social media stars sit alongside cable figures who rose to prominence in the 1990s, like Nancy Grace or Tucker Carlson, as a “good testament to how those worlds can coexist and hopefully thrive together.”
May 14, 2025
YouTube at 20: A journey from the early days of cat videos to the current era of AI integration
A picture of 20th century fox studios edit with AI and 20th YouTube. (20th century fox studios/The NewYorkBudgets/kenzie Utopia)A picture of 20th century fox studios edit with AI and 20th YouTube. (20th century fox studios/The NewYorkBudgets/kenzie Utopia)
Twenty years ago this past week, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted the very first YouTube video, titled “Me at the Zoo.”
“All right. So here we are, in front of the elephants. The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks. And that’s cool. … And that’s pretty much all there is to say.”

Twenty years ago this past week, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted the very first YouTube video, titled “Me at the Zoo.”
“All right. So here we are, in front of the elephants. The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks. And that’s cool. … And that’s pretty much all there is to say.” Me at the zoo by jawed on YouTube
YouTube was so new that our Charles Osgood had to define it for “Sunday Morning” viewers back in 2006: “A website that lets just about anyone post videos for the whole world to see.”
Today, it doesn’t need explaining. YouTube is the second most-visited website on Earth, after Google, which bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.
Every single day, we collectively watch more than a billion hours of YouTube videos. Funny videos … how-to videos … cat videos. In these first 20 years, we’ve uploaded 20 billion videos to YouTube.
The most-watched of all? “Baby Shark Dance,” with about 16 billion views.

Baby Shark Dance | #babyshark Most Viewed Video | Animal Songs | PINKFONG Songs for Children by Baby Shark – Pinkfong Kids Songs & Stories on YouTube
And people aren’t just watching on their phones. “People watch YouTube more than they watch any other streaming service on their big screens in their living rooms now,” said David Craig, who teaches media and culture at the University of Southern California at Annenberg.
Craig says that a key moment was the day YouTube started paying people for making videos. “YouTube came along and said, ‘Why don’t we give you some advertising revenue in exchange for the fact that you’re helping us grow our service?’” he said.
Today, YouTube roughly splits the ad revenue with the creator, according to Craig: “It does probably change a little bit for some of the bigger-name players out there who they obviously need to make sure are very happy with the service.”
Those bigger-name players include Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, creators of a daily show called “Good Mythical Morning.” Thirty-four million subscribers have watched their shows 14 billion times.

Season 27 | Good Mythical MORE by Good Mythical MORE on YouTube
McLaughlin described the show’s appeal: “Two old friends hanging out, where you can be the third person in that friendship. We kind of stumbled upon this secret formula for having people come back every single day.”
They may film in a traditional TV studio, but what is the difference between YouTube and TV? “I’d like to say our talent,” Neal laughed.
“A big part of it is responding to the audience,” said McLaughlin. “You’ve got comments, right? So, there’s ways that you can connect with people online.”
David Craig said, “Creators on YouTube, specifically, are not content creators. They are for-profit community organizers. They are using this platform to build online communities that they can build a dozen different business models off of.”
For McLaughlin and Neal, those business models could include tours, books, sweatshirts, hoodies, magnets and pins. “And you can start to go bigger and sell hair products,” said Neal. “If we’re gonna spend as much time as we both spend on our hair, we are going to monetize it!”
Nobody’s monetized it better than Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, whose videos of colossal giveaways and physical challenges have made him the most-followed YouTuber of all, with 380 million fans.

Survive 100 Days In Circle, Win $500,000 by MrBeast on YouTube
Last year, Amazon Prime spent $100 million to produce a MrBeast game show.
I asked David Craig, “Is being a YouTube star now considered a greater ambition than becoming a television star?”
“I hate to tell you this, David, but that’s been the case now for over 10 years,” Craig replied. “They’ve been surveying young people, and they’ve all said they want to grow up to be a creator or an influencer more than a celebrity – or, I’m sorry to say, a journalist.”

From the archives: The early days of YouTube by CBS Sunday Morning on YouTube
Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal don’t think that the advertising industry has quite caught up with YouTube’s dominance. “If you look at the 18-to-34 age group, we outperform all of the other late-night shows combined,” said Neal. “But if you look at revenue that’s being spent on those shows versus our show, it’s not quite there yet.”
“And honestly, this is one of the reasons that we have really been interested in winning an Emmy,” McLaughlin added. “You know, we’re a part of the cultural conversation, as much as many shows that have won Emmys.”
Over the last two decades, YouTube has had its controversies, from collecting personal information about kids, to claims that the site is fueling a mental health crisis.
YouTube’s detractors also worry about the algorithm. It studies which videos seem to grab your attention, and feeds you more videos like them. YouTube has been accused of letting the algorithm lead people to extreme viewpoints.
“We have this enormous diversity of opinions on our platform,” said YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. “We don’t allow adult content. We obviously don’t allow spam and fraud. And we have policies to protect young people and kids on the platform. But it’s fundamentally a platform for freedom of speech. “
So, with YouTube’s 20th anniversary upon us, what are the next few years going to be like? According to Mohan, “One of the areas that I’m very excited about is artificial intelligence. You can tell YouTube when you’re creating a video, ‘Put us in Central Park, and change the background, and have these types of birds because it’s a spring day.’ And that magical technology exists today.”
I asked, “Is there something about evolution or psychology that makes us so interested in watching other people?”
“I think it goes back to we, as human beings, are social beings,” said Mohan. “We connect with other people. We are storytellers. That is what happens billions of times a day on YouTube. And it’s back to our mission: give everyone a voice and show them the world.”
“It’s a double rainbow all the way!”

Yosemitebear Mountain Double Rainbow 1-8-10 by Yosemitebear62 on YouTube
April 28, 2025
Google Acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion
Early YouTube homepage (2005)
Google Inc. is snapping up YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion in a deal that catapults the Internet search leader to a starring role in the online video revolution.
The all-stock deal announced Monday unites one of the Internet’s marquee companies with one of its rapidly rising stars. It came just hours after YouTube unveiled three agreements with media companies in an apparent bid to escape the threat of copyright-infringement lawsuits.
The price makes YouTube, a still-unprofitable startup, by far the most expensive purchase made by Google during its eight-year history.
Although some cynics have questioned YouTube’s staying power, Google is betting that the popular Web site will provide it an increasingly lucrative marketing hub as more viewers and advertisers migrate from television to the Internet.
“We are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers,” said Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive officer.
YouTube will continue to retain its brand, as well as all 67 employees, including co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
“I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide,” said Hurley, YouTube’s 29-year-old CEO.
“One of the problems with YouTube is that they’ve been known to carry copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holders,” Magid said.
But Hurley and Chen, 27, have spent months dealing with the copyright hurdle by cozying up with major media executives in an effort to convince them that YouTube could help them make more money by helping them connect with the growing number of people who spend most of their free time on the Internet.
While Google has been hauling away huge profits from the booming search market, it hasn’t been able to become a major player in online video.
That should change now, predicted Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li. “This gives Google the video play they have been looking for and gives them a great opportunity to redefine how advertising is done,” she said.
Investors applauded the possible acquisition as Google shares climbed $8.50, or 2 percent, to close at $429 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Several other suitors, including Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and News Corp., reportedly have discussed a possible YouTube purchase in recent weeks.
“This deal looks pretty compelling for Google,” said Standard & Poor’s analyst Scott Kessler said. “Google has been doing a lot of things right, but they are not sitting on their laurels.”
Google’s YouTube coup may intensify the pressure on Yahoo to make its own splash by buying Facebook.com, the Internet’s second most popular social-networking site. Yahoo has reportedly offered as much as $1 billion for Palo Alto-based Facebook during months of sporadic talks.
“Yahoo really needs to step up and do something,” said Roger Aguinaldo, an investment banker who also publishes a deal-making newsletter called the M&A Advisor. “They are becoming less relevant and looking less innovative with each passing day.”
Selling to Mountain View-based Google will give YouTube more technological muscle and advertising know-how, as well as generate a staggering windfall for a 67-employee company that was running on credit card debt just 20 months ago.
Since Hurley and Chen founded the company in February 2005, YouTube has blossomed into a cultural touchstone that shows more than 100 million video clips per day. The video library is eclectic, featuring everything from teenagers goofing off in their rooms to William Shatner singing “Rocket Man” during a 1970s TV show. The clips are submitted by users.
“What’s nice from YouTube’s perspective is that they don’t even have to pay for a lot of that content,” reported Magid. “Much of it is uploaded by people who just want to use the service to show off their talent.”
YouTube’s worldwide audience was 72.1 million by August, up from 2.8 million a year earlier, according to comScore Media Metrix.
YouTube’s conciliatory approach with major media has recently yielded several licensing and promotional agreements that have eased some of the copyright concerns while providing the company with some financial breathing room until it becomes profitable.
To conserve money as it subsisted on $11.5 million in venture capital, YouTube had been based in an austere office above a San Mateo pizzeria until recently moving to more spacious quarters in nearby San Bruno.
As its negotiations with Google appeared to near fruition, YouTube on Monday announced new partnerships with Universal Music Group, CBS Corp. and Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Those alliances followed a similar arrangement announced last month with Warner Music Group Inc.
The truce with Universal represented a particularly significant breakthrough because the world’s largest record company had threatened to sue YouTube for copyright infringement less than a month ago.
Li and Kessler expect even more media companies will be lining up to do business with YouTube now that Google owns it.
“It’s going to be like, ‘You can either fight us or you can make money with us,”‘ Li predicted.
October 10, 2006