YouTube Makes UK Ratings History By Beating BBC On Audience Reach

Key Highlights

• It is a nuanced picture, however, and Barb’s figures offer just one measure of reach.
• On others, the BBC remains comfortably ahead of YouTube, but for the broadcaster to be supplanted on even a single metric is notable, given its decades-long dominance in Britain.
• Related Stories News Netflix Ups Ad-Tier Users By 14% But Prime Video Still Dominates - Research News BBC Will Attempt To Throw Out Donald Trump's $10BN Lawsuit Barb’s figures, published on its website, showed that YouTube had a reach of 51.9M viewers in December, more than a million ahead of the BBC’s equivalent figure of 50.8M.
• Barb’s audience reach figure measures the number of people who watched a television service for at least three consecutive minutes in a month across TV sets, smartphones, tablets, and personal computers.
• Watch on Deadline The last time the BBC’s three-minute monthly reach was higher than what YouTube achieved at the backend of last year was in December 2024, when hits including Gavin & Stacey: The Finale lifted the corporation’s audience to 52.7M.