Short-form video is a format that’s built for mobile — these vertically oriented videos are designed to fit the shape of a smartphone. But according to YouTube, this kind of content has become quite popular on the big screen. It seems counterintuitive, but the data is hard to argue against: YouTube viewers watch over 2 billion hours of YouTube Shorts — the platform’s clips that run up to three minutes — on TVs each month.
“The living room is YouTube’s fastest-growing screen, and the Shorts experience is further helping connect viewers with the world’s most active creator community from the comfort of their couch,” said Kurt Wilms, YouTube’s Senior Director of Product Management for YouTube on TV. “We’ve found that audiences increasingly want to watch their favorite content on the biggest screen at home, whether it’s long-form content, a podcast, or a Short.”
The living room has become a major growth target for YouTube overall. U.S. viewers alone are watching over 200 million hours of YouTube content daily. YouTube shows Shorts in search results from users watching on TV, so even if they didn’t set out to watch a minute-long clip on the big screen, they might end up checking one out anyway. Google TV, a platform from YouTube’s parent company Alphabet, recently announced a “Short videos for you” row on the Google TV feed, which is supposed to further boost watch time.
Because there’s so much extra screen real estate available when watching a vertical video on a television, YouTube has updated the viewing experience to show comments beside the video.
“By tailoring Shorts for the big screen, we unlocked 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,” said Sarah Ali, VP of Product Management for YouTube Shorts, in a press release.
This trend has even extended to podcast viewership, even though podcasts are generally an audio-first medium. Streaming companies are increasingly betting on podcasts to become the new daytime talk show — something that people can turn on and watch but also still get the gist if they get up to do something else while they listen to the television from an adjacent room.
According to YouTube, viewers watched over 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 podcasts too — it signed deals with iHeartMedia, Barstool Sports, Spotify, and other studios to exclusively gain video rights to certain shows.
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