Google’s YouTube might be a competitive force to traditional media in the living room, but that doesn’t mean legacy players are ignoring or strictly trying to beat back the video platform’s might.
Instead, many are turning to YouTube as a place to reach and engage broader audiences and promote their premium sports highlights, entertainment clips and long-form, and other content like kids and news programming.
The most recent example of traditional media turning to YouTube was news this week of multi-pronged, multi-year agreement between NBCUniversal and the platform. Part of that involves including all Peacock content within the YouTube Premium experience starting in early 2027 and plans to bring select premium live sports from NBC to YouTube channels, among other collaborations.
With that in mind, we’re excited to bring StreamTV Insiders a new exclusive monthly ranker, courtesy of Tubular, that tracks the top 10 U.S. traditional media channels on YouTube each month based on unique domestic viewers. That includes TV networks, movie studios, programs and network-owned streaming services.
So who leaned in and took the crown at attracting audiences on YouTube in June?
Disney sweeps the YouTube podium in June
Per Tubular, Disney-owned channels saw significant growth in June 2026 as school was out for kids and the company successfully aimed to turn Toy Story 5 into a box office hit.
Disney accounted for the top three channels among traditional media by unique YouTube viewers and four of the top seven including ABC – plus ESPN.
Disney Junior was the top channel in the ranker last month, generating 40 million unique domestic viewers – up slightly by 2% month-over-month. Disney+ and Disney Pixar placed in second and third respectively, as each generated 33 million views in June and saw significant month-over-month growth (130% and 354%).
While still trailing ESPN on YouTube, with the World Cup taking place in June Fox Sports’ saw its YouTube audience soar by 594% as the channel shared sports highlights from the tournament all month.
And network and cable news retained their strong position in terms of total audience.
Four of the top 10 U.S. traditional media channels by unique domestic viewers were news-related, including ABC, Fox News, NBC News and CNN.
See the full top 10 below and be sure to check back next month to see which networks, studios and streaming services from traditional media got the most audience love on YouTube in July.
