YouTube’s big bet: CTV first, Shorts paid, sports amplified

In a conference transcript, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan outlined YouTube’s growth priorities across creators, viewers, and monetization, highlighting connected TV as the primary way people watch YouTube in the U.S. and citing over a billion hours of watch time on CTV globally. Mohan reported ~20% YoY growth in Shorts engaged views (Q1 2025) and said Shorts revenue per watch hour has reached parity with long-form in-stream in some markets, while detailing ad innovations such as shoppable CTV formats, pause ads, and AI-driven Demand Gen efficiency improvements. He also discussed YouTube’s subscription and sports strategy, including YouTube TV’s 8M+ subscribers, 45 Primetime Channels, YouTube Music & Premium at 125M subscribers, and an expanded NFL partnership including Sunday Ticket and an exclusive kickoff-week Brazil game available broadly on YouTube and YouTube TV.