Shut your eyes and envision the channel you see as the most well-liked YouTube hub based mostly in america. You could consider MrBeast’s eye-popping spectacles, Ms. Rachel’s kid-friendly tunes, or Alan Chikin Chow’s sprawling content material empire, but when your psychological picture didn’t embody Coneheads, Californians, or David S. Pumpkins, you then thought fallacious.
In keeping with analysis shared by Digital i, the official Saturday Evening Dwell hub had the very best attain amongst all U.S.-based YouTube channels through the first half of 2025. Through YouTube, NBC’s venerable sketch comedy program linked with 38.6 million distinctive viewers throughout that six-month interval.
Earlier Digital i studies have lined subjects like unique content material and streaming providers. The software program firm’s findings typically run opposite to in style knowledge, and that appears to be the case right here. Regardless of the creator financial system’s rising cultural import, Digital i’s attain rating is dominated by media firms. Information networks (ABC Information, NBC Information, ) claimed six spots within the prime ten, with the opposite 4 positions going to leisure locations (SNL, YouTube Films, Netflix, and the NFL).Subscribe for day by day Tubefilter Prime StoriesSubscribe
To be clear, the totals right here are supposed to omit repeat viewership and hits that come from automated sources like viewbots. That components explains why information organizations fared so properly in Digital i’s accounting: They’re channels which can be designed for one-off visits somewhat than repeated viewing of particular movies.
Within the case of SNL, a affluent YouTube push has been supported by a number of platform-wide developments. SNL was already one of many most-watched YouTube channels earlier than the arrival of Shorts, and the recognition of comedy clips inside short-form feeds introduced NBC with a golden alternative to repackage traditional bits as vertical video uploads.
With its multiformat YouTube technique in place, SNL headed into its fiftieth season, which hit its peak through the six-month interval measured for the Digital i report. The fiftieth anniversary particular was tailored for viewership on TV screens, the place a lot YouTube site visitors now flows. Digital i famous that TV screens outpaced different YouTube viewership locales through the first half of 2025.
So, to recap: SNL presents a uncommon mixture of conventional media assets and short-form cultural tastes. No marvel the present continues to seek out new forged members on-line. That’s the place its viewers are, and it’s assembly them on their turf.
As for “attain,” it isn’t an agreed-upon stat, however within the age of generative AI, the measurement favored by Digital i begins to look extra appropriate. There’s fakery in all places on YouTube, from its creators proper all the way down to its viewers. If, consequently, view counts are going to be artificially inflated, then maybe analysts are proper to look elsewhere for a most popular metric.
