It's Tuesday and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman offered up some interesting soundbites on a recent podcast appearance, noting both that recent grads are “the luckiest kids in all of history” and that “a kid born today will never be smarter than AI.”

Today’s News

THE BIZ

The UK wants to measure YouTube more like TV

The ratings: Analytics firms have long discussed the “measurement gap” between digital and linear platforms. While digital services collect vast amounts of granular viewing data internally, traditional TV has historically offered more accessible, standardized, third-party-verified audience measurement across the industry.

Barb is looking to close the chasm by bringing Nielsen-style ratings to YouTube’s traffic on TV screens.

The U.K.-based measurement nonprofit already offers platform-level YouTube viewership data. It’s similar ins cope to the metrics Nielsen uses to show that Google’s video platform has more traffic on TV screens than any other content provider. 

Now, Barb is offering more granular insights by reading router meters installed in select households to create “human panels.” Once those numbers are collected, they are presented in the client portal on Barb’s website, creating a snapshot of the typical viewership a specific program or channel receives over a set period.

The context: Barb CEO Justin Sampson told The Drum that the “initiative is a natural response to the widely-reported growth of YouTube viewing on the TV set” and that by not providing “more evidence of what people watch on YouTube, we risk a growing black hole in our industry’s standard for understanding what people watch.”

That “black hole” is a major concern for advertisers looking to amp up their YouTube presence. In a recent eMarketer survey, for instance, brand reps were most likely to cite “measuring creator performance” as the biggest roadblock for their influencer marketing campaigns.

Nielsen is indirectly responsible for that persistent issue. The firm has earned a high level of industry trust over its 80+ years of experience measuring TV programming. But without a way to install router meters on digital content, Nielsen has struggled to make meaningful comparisons between TV viewership and YouTube traffic.

Now, however, YouTube’s rising dominance on TVs has created an opportunity to measure the platform’s viewership using the same kind of panel-based metrics long applied to traditional networks—and Barb is eager to kickstart the process.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• YouTube channels like The Labrador’s Adventure are leveraging the success of Superman to soar up our weekly subscriber rankings. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• A $7.7 billion deal will reportedly bring 30 UFC “Fight Nights” and 13 additional events to Paramount Plus. (The Verge)
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• “Golden”—a song from Netflix’s hit animated film KPop Demon Hunters—has officially hit #1 on the Billboard 100 chart. (Gizmodo)
  
  

• Fox One is joining forces with ESPN’s own upcoming streaming service to offer a discounted bundle to subscribers. (The Verge)

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Top Branded Videos: Would you like a side of water with that?

MrBeast is back at #1 in Gospel Stats’ weekly ranking of most-viewed branded YouTube videos—which, of course, means his closest competitors are all at least 50 million views behind. Chasing the beast’s latest charitable endeavor are an undercover polyglot, a car rescue specialist, and (way down at #3,139) a guy who lives to eat.

🥇 #1. MrBeast x Shopify: 2,000,000 People Get Clean Water For The First Time! (50.6M views)
MrBeast has teamed up with Mark Rober once again to launch a charitable endeavor: #TeamWater. That initiative aims to raise $40 million to supply millions of households with clean drinking water—meaning it’s not only good news for Shopify that MrBeast’s announcement video attracted 50 million views; it’s also a boon for everyone who stands to benefit from #TeamWater’s mission.

🥈 #2. Xiaomanyc 小马在纽约 x Migaku: White Waiter Shocks Customers with Perfect Mandarin (7.8M views)
For the second week in a row, Gospel Stats’ #2 video was sponsored by a language-learning app. This week, it was Migaku that threw its support behind a creator video (specifically a language-focused skit featuring YouTube-famous polyglot Xiaomanyc).

🎰 #3,139. chon digital x Rocket Money: Why We STILL Dine Out (31.3K views)
This week’s wildcard clip is a food-fueled video essay from chon digital, whose ability to explain everything from the origins of candy flavors to the rationale of takeout is apparently powered by lots of fast food. Thankfully, sponsor Rocket Money can tell him (and the video’s 31,300 viewers) exactly how much to save and how much to spend on bills.

Check out the full branded ranking here and head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

POD PEOPLE

Podcast listening on TVs has doubled in the U.K. What now?

The data: More and more U.K. consumers are tuning into podcasts on connected TVs. According to Edison Research‘s new UK Podcast Consumer report, the number of UK-based people who most often listen to podcasts via smart TV has doubled since 2023, going from 4% to 8%. (The vast majority of consumers–66%–still listen to podcasts most often on a smartphone.)

Here are a few other key stats from Edison’s study:

• 51% of people over age 16 in the UK have listened to at least one podcast episode in the last month, while 33% have consumed one in the last week. (In the U.S., by comparison, Edison found that 47% of people have listened to a podcast in the last month and 34% have listened to one in the past week.)
  
  

• 71% of U.K. consumers say they’ve listened to a podcast at least once.
  
  

• 20% of UK-based weekly podcast consumers said YouTube is their most frequented platform for listening to podcast content, while 33% cited Spotify, 13% said Apple Podcasts, and 15% claimed BBC Sounds.
  
  

• 59% of UK podcast consumers listen to shows most often at home, which indicates the CTV-to-smartphone ratio could continue to tip toward CTV.

The takeaway: According to Edison Senior Director of Research Gabriel Soto, that information shows that “this is a pivotal moment” for advertisers. He added that “the data shows further adoption potential, robust ad ROI and tools already in place to help brands confidently invest in podcasts as a core part of their media strategy.”

Of course, Edison’s findings aren’t just valuable information for advertisers. They also hint at the possibility of long-form podcast content being a key player in YouTube’s UK CTV success. Going forward, we’re keen to see if—and how—this rapidly growing CTV consumption will influence the platform’s strategy as it competes with rivals like Spotify.

WATCH THIS

Cup stacking is back, baby!

The speed stackers: Speed stacking videos are a classic genre on YouTube, and while cup-slinging creators aren’t quite as popular as they were in the ‘00s, our latest Global Top 50 ranking suggests the sport could be making a comeback. 

Take Liz and Jaice: three of the couple’s four most-watched Shorts focus on cup-stacking—and the resulting viewership stats have contributed to a steady climb up the charts. Liz and Jaice’s masterful combination of couple content and speed-stacking nostalgia was at least partially responsible for their most recent influx of views. Last week, the duo scored 450.2 million views to reach #38 in the Global Top 50.

Check out one of their latest and most viral cup-slinging videos here.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.