YouTube’s Q1 ad revenue approached $10 billion, up 11%, with subscriptions also growing strongly. And Howdy hit 1 million subscribers, as Roku flexes its distribution muscles.
Another spectacular quarter for YouTube (2:00)
Alphabet reported first-quarter results this week, and YouTube delivered double-digit revenue growth versus Q1 2025. Of course, ads did well, but the company singled out subscriptions, primarily from YouTube Premium, as growing faster than ad revenue.
News emerges as key growth category for YouTube (7:00)
Press Gazette reports that news is a key growth category for YouTube, with subscriptions to English-speaking news channels increasing by 16% over the last 15 months. The BBC has emerged as the category leader. The UK broadcaster’s emergence as a YouTube leader in news is notable for two reasons: its commitment to YouTube-first content and the acceptance of ads run against its content.
YouTube TV introduces user-customizable multi-viewer (10:30)
YouTube TV continues to innovate its service with a feature that lets viewers customize a multiview stream with channels of their choosing.
Google TV is adding YouTube Shorts to the experience (12:00)
YouTube Shorts will soon appear in the Google TV experience, though I’m not sure what value it brings.
Roku’s Howdy reaches 1M subs (4:00)
Roku launched Howdy, an SVOD service specializing in ad-free access to deep library content, in August 2025, and Antenna reports it has already acquired 1 million subscribers.
Peacock Premium Plus through The Roku Channel looks for feature parity (19:50)
Roku announced it would use Cloud DVR functionality to deliver pause and rewind features to subscribers to Peacock Premium Plus through The Roku Channel. Peacock direct subscribers already have the features.
The Roku Channel gets next-day access to CW broadcast content (23:30)
The CW has agreed to release its most recent broadcast content available to users of The Roku Channel the day after broadcast.
