It’s not just YouTube that’s been reaping living room rewards. In the past year, the number of YouTube channels earning six-figure paydays from TV viewership has increased by 45%, YouTube shared in a blog post released Wednesday.
To meet such demands as the company moves further into the living room, YouTube unveiled five new updates and tools designed to encourage TV viewership ahead of Wednesday’s Q3 2025 earnings report.
Most of these updates are tech focused. For example, creators will soon be able to upload thumbnails that are 50MB, a big increase from the previous 2MB limit. This will allow creators to showcase their content with 4K-resolution thumbnails. YouTube is also introducing an AI-powered feature that will automatically generate higher resolutions for videos, starting with videos uploaded below 1080p.
The goal is to upscale most videos from SD to HD and to eventually support resolutions of up to 4K. Creators will be given the option to opt-out of these enhancements, and viewers will still be able to watch videos in the same resolution that creators originally selected when they uploaded their video.
YouTube’s channel experience is also getting a makeover. Channels will now come with immersive previews that will appear on YouTube’s homepage, similar to Netflix’s homepage. The platform is also introducing contextual search for TVs, meaning that when a viewer searches for a creator’s channel page, videos from that channel will be prioritized above all other results. That wasn’t always the case as YouTube’s search had a tendency to operate like the wild west.
Finally, YouTube is capitalizing (pun intended) on its shopping content. Over the last 12 months, viewers watched 35 billion hours of shopping-related videos, YouTube shared. Soon viewers will be able to scan a shopping QR code on their TV screens, allowing them to purchase products directly from their phones.
The announcement came ahead of Alphabet’s third quarter earnings report for 2025 on Wednesday.
