YouTube Surpasses Disney to Become the World's Largest Media Company

YouTube now officially holds the crown for the world's largest media company.

Research firm MoffettNathanson confirmed on March 9 that the Google-owned platform generated $62.3 billion in 2025 revenue.

This edges past Disney’s $60.9 billion, making history as a creator-driven platform that sits ahead of a legacy entertainment giant in annual revenue.

The milestone follows YouTube's crossing of the $60 billion threshold last month, which had already placed it well ahead of Netflix's $45.18 billion.

This is the first time that Alphabet has disclosed YouTube’s combined advertising and subscription revenue.

MoffettNathanson, which called YouTube the "new king of all media" last year, now values the platform at between $500 billion and $560 billion as a standalone business.

YouTube’s Two-Revenue Engine

The social media giant's path to the top came through scale on two fronts simultaneously.

Advertising on the free platform generated over $40 billion in 2025.

Subscription revenue from YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, and NFL Sunday Ticket accounted for nearly a third of total income.

Running both models against the same content library is what got YouTube to the top.

YouTube TV now has around 10 million subscribers and is on pace to overtake pay-TV leaders Charter and Comcast within the next few years.

January marked the 11th consecutive month that YouTube has topped Nielsen's distributor index, with 12.5% of total aggregated audience among major media companies.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos recently noted that more than half of YouTube's audience now watches on television.

This detail underscores how far the platform has moved from its origins as a browser-based video site.

YouTube’s Growing Lead Over Netflix

Netflix finished 2025 at $45.18 billion in revenue, with YouTube's $62.3 billion putting it roughly $17 billion ahead.

YouTube's growth came in at 14% for 2025, down from 19% in 2024. 

Yet it still had the highest absolute gain among all major media companies.

Alphabet's Q4 results also reinforced how central YouTube has become to the parent company.

Total revenue hit $113.8 billion, up 18% year-over-year, and net income reached $34.5 billion.

Analyst Michael Nathanson wrote that YouTube's global scale and product breadth create "an uncommonly high moat."

And AI investment will help creators produce more content at a faster cadence.

The platform sits at the intersection of media and technology in a way no traditional studio has managed, and this position is only getting more valuable.

Here are a few takeaways for brands and agencies tracking where media spend is heading next:

• Track subscription revenue alongside advertising. Ad figures alone no longer reflect YouTube’s full commercial scale when planning media budgets.
• Creator-driven inventory changes media planning. The platform’s supply of content grows with its creator base, influencing reach and frequency.
• Distributor scale now defines media power. Platforms can command more attention than companies built primarily around content ownership.

For brands with significant media investments, YouTube's ascent changes the calculus on where attention is consolidating and at what price.

Our Take: Is This the End of Hollywood's Grip on Media?

We think the Disney comparison is the more significant milestone in this story.

Netflix is a streaming service.

Disney is a century-old entertainment institution with theme parks, studios, broadcast networks, and one of the most valuable IP libraries ever assembled.

Passing Disney on revenue, even with parks excluded, shows how completely the distribution layer has overtaken the content layer in commercial terms.

YouTube got here by making infrastructure for other people's content and then monetizing it twice, once through ads and once through subscriptions.

Brands shifting media investment toward platform-native channels need agencies that understand how audience consolidation affects advertising strategy and content planning.

Explore the top media buying agencies in our directory.