You might have already heard that NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live won an Emmy this week for its 50th anniversary special, but it has also taken the crown in an equally prestigious contest.
Digital i’s latest report, How is the U.S. using YouTube?, sheds light on how viewers in the States engaged with the platform during the first half of 2025 – and Saturday Night Live was a clear standout.
The show’s official YouTube channel reached 38.6 million U.S. users – more than any other channel during that period.
Having launched our YouTube measurement offering earlier this year, we have observed several clear trends in global consumption on the platform whilst working with this data. One of these is that, when ranked by account reach, the list of the top 10 most popular channels in any country is typically dominated by national news channels.
While this was largely true for the U.S. in H125, Saturday Night Live came out ahead of news channels including ABC News, NBC News and CNN.
Additionally, the reach table was not the only chart that Saturday Night Live topped, with ‘SNL’ also the most searched-for term on YouTube during H1 2025.
The show’s skits, monologues and musical performances make ideal short-form clips once repackaged for YouTube and its appearance here too suggests that it is not only popular amongst accounts subscribed to the channel, but also users seeking out its content.
The other most searched-for topics make for enlightening reading. Top children’s brands including Bluey, Ms. Rachel and CoComelon made the list, while American rapper Kendrick Lamar made two appearances in the top 10.
The day after his Super Bowl half time show on 9 February, there was a spike in searches to his name – around 8-9% of all searches for Kendrick Lamar during H1 2025 – as users seemingly looked to rewatch his performance. This demonstrates the kind of impact that broadcast events can have on YouTube engagement.
What users actively search for on YouTube, beyond the channels they are subscribed to, offers a different insight into evolving audience interests and can shine a light on what is currently capturing national or global attention.
Would you like to know more?
To read the How is the U.S. using YouTube? report in full, click here.
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