Britons watch YouTube for 51 minutes a day, regulator Ofcom says

LONDON, ‌Dec 10 (Reuters) - Britons watched YouTube on average for 51 minutes ‍a ‌day in 2025 on smartphones, tablets and PCs, regulator Ofcom said, ⁠noting that services from ‌its owner Alphabet and from Meta account for more than half of all time spent online.

Adults spend an average of four and a half ⁠hours online a day, Ofcom said in the Online Nation 2025 report, up ​10 minutes on last year.

YouTube was Alphabet's most ‌popular service in Britain, ⁠used by 94% of adult internet users in May 2025, according to Ofcom, beating Google Search, which was used by ​82% of online adults.

The combination of Facebook and Messenger remained the most widely used Meta-owned service, used by 93% of online adults, the report said, while WhatsApp was used by 90%.

The ​growing ‍popularity of YouTube shows ​how the media landscape is rapidly changing in Britain, with traditional linear broadcasters losing audience share to social media sites dominated by Alphabet and Meta.

Pay-TV group Sky, owned by Comcast, last month said it was in talks to buy ITV, Britain's biggest ⁠free-to-air commercial broadcaster.

Former ITV chairman Peter Bazalgette said when the talks were announced that regulators needed ​to redefine the ad market to take account of competing digital services, such as YouTube.

Meta and Google captured about 60% of UK ad spend in 2024, while ‌Google's YouTube was the second most watched service, behind only the BBC, Ofcom said in July.

(Reporting by Paul SandleEditing by Alexandra Hudson)