YouTube has revealed new stats and insights about viewing in the living room, a key strategic area of recent focus for the video giant.

Total daily viewing via a TV set reached 1 billion hours, the Google division said Wednesday in a blog post. The scale is consistent with Nielsen’s monthly Gauge report, a snapshot of monthly TV viewing across linear and streaming in the U.S., where YouTube has consistently outranked Netflix and other streamers.

Viewing time of sports content via TV sets rose 30% in 2024 compared with 2023, YouTube said. NFL Sunday Ticket, which began its exclusive run on YouTube in 2023 has given a boost to the overall sports push. The deal for the package also included provisions for the league to engage more fully with YouTube talent, in turn driving more attention to their channels.

On a related note, the blog post noted the start of a pilot run for a feature called Watch With. It puts a game (or, potentially, other attractions like awards shows or other events) in the same frame as a creator, who gives live commentary, analysis, and real time reactions. “It transforms your favorite creators into sportscasters!” the blog post said, noting that the feature is “still in its early days” but would be “coming soon.”

As overall living room viewing has grown, the video quality bar has also risen, with the share of videos uploaded in 4K rising 35% over the previous year. Another enticement for living room viewers, a streamlined button allowing viewers to subscribe to channels via their TV has yielded a more than 40% increase in the number of subscriptions initiated via a TV set.

Podcasts also continue to surge, with viewers watching more than 400 million hours of them monthly on living room devices.

“The lines between audio-only podcasts and videos have blurred,” the blog post said, “and more creators are evolving to a multimedia storytelling approach to deepen connection with their audiences on YouTube.”