Juggernaut, behemoth, cable TV killer: all terms we could ascribe to one of the mainstays of the modern internet, YouTube.

As a term it acts both as a proper noun — describing a commercial entity — and as a verb — as in “YouTube this, YouTube that.”

Some may remember that in its very early days, after Google acquired the video startup, YouTube had a very odd-looking URL or domain, youtu.be, taking advantage of the internet country code for Belgium.

YouTube as a media property in 2026 is indeed a juggernaut. For many it is the sole video platform with which they engage, be it through a mobile device, a laptop, or a smart TV.

By some measures YouTube is the world’s largest media company, albeit as a subsidiary of Alphabet, the umbrella company that incorporates Google and a host of other business entities.

YouTube went live in April 2005 with a video entitled “Me at the zoo.” About a year and a half later Google acquired the service for the then-unheard-of, and widely panned, price of $1.65 billion. Money wasted on cat videos, said some pundits at the time.

According to data compiled by American business analytics firm MoffettNathanson Research, YouTube took in just over US$62 billion in revenue in 2025. That’s more than a billion dollars a week and more than Disney’s media empire earned, although only by about a billion or so dollars.

To throw a little Canadian spin on those numbers, that billion a week stacks up mightily against the total debt of one-time Canadian media giant Corus Entertainment, which has about CDN$1.5 billion in liabilities.

YouTube is a complex entity, no longer just a repository for cat videos and the like. Canada is insulated from its actual complexity in that we don’t have access to YouTube TV, its subscription service that provides television channels much like a typical cable TV plan. In addition there are sports packages under the NFL Sunday Ticket label.

Canadians do have access to YouTube Premium ($14/month for an individual, $23/month for up to six family members), essentially a way to bypass advertising breaks in videos. For some this has become their TV subscription in essence, eating away at the cable TV subscription model along with other streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. There is evidence that fewer than 60 per cent of Canadian households still maintain a cable service.

YouTube Premium also offers a yearly rate of $140 (basically two months free) and a student plan ($8/month). There is also a “limited” individual plan, called Premium Lite, at $8/month with what is described as “limited ad-free viewing, background playing, and downloads.”

Cable TV providers are noticing, continuing to ratchet up both TV and internet plan rates, hoping to preserve their once lucrative revenue streams from TV alone. It may be a losing battle.

• Second-largest search engine in the world, after Google
• Second-most visited website globally
• More than 1 billion hours of video watched every day
• About 2.5 billion monthly users — roughly one-third of the world’s population
 • Over 500 hours of video uploaded every minute

Surely the days of legacy media services are numbered. We’ve written numerous columns on the disappearance of AM band radio stations. A broader case in point surfaced in March when one-time American media powerhouse CBS announced it was shuttering its CBS News Radio department, just a year short of what would have been its hundredth anniversary. Today, listeners are more likely to turn to a podcast than they are to tune in to a radio station.

In Colorado, an internet and TV service provider that specializes in delivering content via the Android TV platform said it was completely eliminating traditional TV coverage and moving its subscribers to YouTube TV.

In the United States fewer than 25 per cent of households still have a TV subscription plan, according to analytics firm Nielsen. The company also says streaming TV usage, on the likes of Netflix and Prime Video or through smart TV devices and sets such as Roku and Google TV, has risen to 47 per cent.

Yes, by numerous measures, YouTube, along with its associated YouTube TV, is indeed a juggernaut, altering the media landscape as it continues to expand to meet user demand. It is certainly a contributor to the death of the standard cable TV subscription plan.