YouTube Is Now the World’s Largest Media Company – And Soon the Home of the Oscars

Industry News

by Nino LeitnerMarch 17^th, 2026

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According to a new analysis by financial research firm MoffettNathanson, YouTube has overtaken The Walt Disney Company to become the world’s largest media company by annual revenue, hitting an estimated $62 billion in 2025. The milestone arrives just days after the 98th Academy Awards, one of the last ceremonies to air on ABC before YouTube takes over as the exclusive global Oscars broadcaster in 2029.

The numbers, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, are unambiguous: YouTube’s $62 billion in 2025 revenue edged past Disney’s $60.9 billion from its media properties (excluding theme parks and cruises). But the valuation gap tells the bigger story. MoffettNathanson estimates YouTube would be worth between $500 billion and $560 billion as a standalone company. Netflix, the nearest traditional media competitor, has a market cap of roughly $409 billion.

The revenue breakdown

Of YouTube’s $62 billion, approximately $40 billion came from advertising, with Q4 2025 alone contributing $11.4 billion. The remaining revenue comes from YouTube’s subscription portfolio: YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, NFL Sunday Ticket, and YouTube TV, which now has around 10 million subscribers and is projected to overtake pay-TV leaders Charter and Comcast in the coming years.

As we covered in February, YouTube has paid out more than $100 billion to creators, music companies, and media partners over the past four years. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan has positioned this figure as the platform’s core value proposition: helping creators build audiences and businesses at a scale no traditional media company can match.

The Oscars are coming to YouTube

Perhaps nothing illustrates YouTube’s dominance more clearly than the Academy choosing the platform as its exclusive worldwide Oscars broadcaster starting in 2029. The deal, announced in December 2025, runs through 2033, replacing ABC, which has broadcast the ceremony since 1960.

Academy CEO Bill Kramer explained the rationale in an interview with The Guardian: “When we thought about a distribution deal, we wanted to reach the largest global audience possible. YouTube provides that for us. We can reach 2.5 billion people around the world at one time.” With Oscars viewership on traditional TV having declined from a peak of 43.7 million to 19.69 million in 2025, the logic is hard to argue with.

This past Sunday’s 98th Academy Awards already offered a preview: four official YouTube livestreams ran alongside the ABC telecast, and Oscars-related content had accumulated over 3 billion views on YouTube across more than 250,000 creator videos in the prior 12 months. That figure represents a massive, fragmented audience engaging with the Oscars through predictions, reactions, and reviews, all of which YouTube can monetize through its advertising infrastructure. It is a fundamentally different model from the single linear broadcast ABC has offered for over six decades.

Outpacing the competition

YouTube’s revenue grew 14% in 2025, down slightly from 19% in 2024, but the platform still outpaced nearly every other media company. Only Roku (18%) and Netflix (16%) posted higher percentage gains according to MoffettNathanson.

YouTube has dominated Nielsen’s distributor index for 11 consecutive months, capturing 12.5% of total aggregated audience share. More than half of that audience now watches on television screens rather than phones, a point Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos himself made during a recent congressional hearing. To capitalize on this shift, Google recently informed advertisers that YouTube’s TV app will soon feature 30-second, unskippable commercials.

The dual-revenue model of free, ad-supported content alongside premium subscriptions gives YouTube a structural advantage few competitors can match. MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson argues that generative AI will further accelerate this, helping creators produce more content while enabling better targeting and monetization.

What this means for filmmakers

YouTube’s rise to the top is a confirmation of trends we have been tracking closely. Michael Cioni’s analyses of the creator economy versus Hollywood have laid out the structural forces at work: traditional Hollywood is contracting while creator-led platforms grow. As we reported in 2024, film and TV production has fallen roughly 40% from 2022 levels, and the industry continues to consolidate. Netflix walked away from its $82.3 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery after Paramount Skydance came in at $110 billion. On a pro forma basis, the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. 2025 revenue would have been $66.2 billion, slightly ahead of YouTube, but the vastly different growth rates make that lead short-lived.

Meanwhile, the Academy is standing firm on theatrical release requirements for Oscar eligibility even as it moves the ceremony to YouTube. Kramer emphasized the Academy’s continued commitment to theatrical exhibition through release window and city-count requirements. It is a nuanced balancing act: embracing the platform that represents the future of distribution while preserving the theatrical experience that cinema’s most prestigious award is built around.

YouTube becoming the world’s largest media company and the future home of the Oscars represents a watershed moment for the entertainment industry. Do you see YouTube’s growing dominance as an opportunity for independent filmmakers, or does it concern you? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!