World-class creators, deeply engaged fans, and all the content we love most. There's only one YouTube.

The landscape of entertainment has changed, and YouTube is at the forefront, driving and creating that change. Today, YouTube is where creators are studios in their own right, creating unique genres of content and entertainment, and viewers are looking to build deep connections with them and their communities. No other platform has this unique combination of world-class creators, deeply engaged fans, and all the content they love most. There really is only one YouTube.

Last night, YouTube Canada held its annual YouTube Features event for advertisers, featuring the creators and content that are defining a new era of entertainment. Here’s a breakdown of the key takeaways from the event.

YouTube is powered by creators and has the content Canadians love most

Canadians aren’t just watching cultural moments. They are turning to YouTube to go deeper, and watching hours and hours of related content built around these moments. YouTube is where cultural touchstones explode into content universes, where pop music becomes pop culture, and where Hockey on Saturday night lives on 24/7. It’s where that one video a viewer is looking for becomes the doorway into a world they can’t wait to explore. And it all starts with our creators.

YouTube's world-class creators are redefining entertainment as we know it. With talk shows, explainers and challenges, creators are reimagining classic formats and inventing new ones. Creators have production teams, scripts, studios and deeply engaged viewership. They are the next generation media empires. There are creator teams like Yes Theory, who met in Montreal, then built a channel that’s taken them to places their viewers might never go, inspiring millions around the world to step outside their comfort zones. And then there are individual creators, like Jeenie Weenie, who has over 10M subscribers, and made history this year as a correspondent with the Paris Creator Collective at the Summer Olympics, all because of her deeply engaged fans on YouTube.

And they’re doing this on the biggest screen in the home. On average viewers are watching over 1B hours of YouTube content on the big screen (televisions) daily¹ New research from Kantar indicates that Canadians love YouTube so much that if they could only watch one service for an entire year, the #1 platform they would choose is YouTube² Because they know that whatever they are passionate about, they can find it here.

YouTube goes beyond viewers to deeply engaged fans

Viewers once participated in fandom through consumption — now, they do it by creating content. 66% of Gen Z respondents describe themselves as a video content creator³.

On YouTube, viewers often spend more time with fan content than the actual original source material. For example, while RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 aired in 2024, YouTube creators uploaded 1,500 hours of content related to the show—and that's not even including the official Drag Race channel⁴. In fact, 50% of people surveyed would prefer to watch creators breaking down an event rather than watch the event itself⁵.

Brands want to connect with viewers, no matter how they enjoy content. Whether it’s Shorts, long form videos or podcasts, brands know that the meaningful connections viewers experience on YouTube, translate to meaningful results for their business. And when these engaged viewers are on their shopping journey, searching and researching products, YouTube acts as a decision-making engine. According to a survey by TalkShoppe, YouTube is #1 in helping Canadian respondents decide what to purchase, more helpful than any other platform⁶.

Advertisers who recognize the power of engagement are embracing YouTube and finding incredible results in their campaigns. Take RBC, for example. This year RBC’s media team leaned heavily into the power of YouTube’s AI formats in their latest personal banking campaign and grew awareness of their offer by over 60% which translated into an almost 10% lift in banking applications.

Yesterday, we shared new ways for advertisers to tap into the deep fandom happening on YouTube.

Rolling out in early 2025, we’re offering YouTube Select Creator Takeovers to give brands the opportunity to make the most of creator-fan connections. Brands will be able to own 100% share of voice on top creators’ channels like Mia Maples, Kallmekris, or Throttle House. Fans don’t want to miss a moment with their favourite creators. And we don’t want advertisers to miss a moment with them.

For Canadian viewers across the country who come to engage with the content they love, for thousands of creators who innovate for their existing communities and new audiences, and for brands who connect with viewers to move their business forward, there is only one YouTube.