Short-form videos were originally made for phones, with vertical layouts designed for quick scrolling on small screens. However, YouTube says this format is now becoming surprisingly popular on television screens as well.
According to the platform, people now watch more than 2 billion hours of YouTube Shorts each month on TVs. Shorts are videos that can run up to three minutes, and they are increasingly being consumed in living rooms instead of just on mobile devices.
YouTube says the living room has become its fastest-growing viewing space. The company reports that users in the US alone watch over 200 million hours of YouTube content every day on TV screens. This shift shows that viewers are no longer limiting short videos to mobile use, even though that was their original design.
The platform now actively promotes Shorts on television. Even when users search for other content on TV, Shorts can appear in results, meaning people may end up watching them even if they were not specifically looking for short videos. Google TV has also added a dedicated row for short videos to encourage more viewing on the big screen.
To improve the experience, YouTube has redesigned how Shorts look on TVs. Since vertical videos leave extra space on widescreen displays, the platform now shows comments and engagement features alongside the video instead of hiding them.
YouTube executives say this change helps make Shorts more immersive while also giving creators a much larger audience beyond mobile users. The trend is also spreading to podcasts, which are traditionally audio-based. More viewers are now watching podcast content on TVs, turning them into something closer to talk shows that can run in the background while doing other activities.
YouTube says people watched over 700 million hours of podcasts on living room devices in 2025, a major increase from the previous year. Other platforms like Netflix are also investing in video podcasts as demand for TV-friendly digital content continues to grow.
