YouTube Premium and Music Subscribers Pass 150 Million as Ad Revenue Tops $11 Billion in Q3 – The Hollywood Reporter

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterThe Google-owned video platform continues to see explosive growth. By Alex Weprin Senior Editor YouTube now has more than 150 million subscribers to its YouTube Premium and YouTube Music services, solidifying the Google-owned video platform as a juggernaut not only in the video advertising space, but in the subscription space as well. The company had disclosed that the two services topped 125 million subscribers (including trials) last year. It does not break out how many subscribers each of the two offerings has. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced the milestone in connection with the company’s Q3 earnings report Wednesday afternoon. YouTube also saw its ad sales surge to more than $11.2 billion in the quarter, up from $10.3 billion a year ago, and on par with Q2. On the earnings call, Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler said that more than 20 million videos are uploaded to YouTube every day, while expanding on how Alphabet views the business more broadly. “We view YouTube as a flywheel of creators, viewers, and advertisers,” Schindler said, outlining some of the things it was doing to reduce friction in all three parts of that flywheel. “We are making creation easier with new generative AI tools in YouTube Studio, plus a conversational editing assistant in Shorts and YouTube Create. “Looking at viewership, at Made on YouTube, we introduced short series where creators can structure their shorts into seasons and episodes,” he continued. “Sequential playback makes it seamless for viewers to discover new shorts and keep watching. The third part is monetization, starting with ads. Our focus remains on delivering value across the entire funnel. In Q3, Living Room accounted for over 1/3 of total YouTube ads revenues. Small and medium advertisers continue to adopt demand gen, driving direct response. As for the subscription milestone: “With Premium and Premium Light, viewers have choice,” Schiller said. “As more people opt into premium experiences, it’s a win for viewers, creators, and our business. Subscriptions help fund the creator ecosystem and drive the platform forward.” More to come.Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every daySubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSend us a tip using our anonymous form.source