It’s well known that consumers are watching a lot more social video these days from platforms like YouTube via connected TV. But according to the latest findings from the UK research company Ampere Analysis, viewers ages 55-64 are increasingly getting into one of the internet’s most traditionally youthful paradigms — influencer videos.
While 44% of U.S. adults age 55-64 years reported watching influencer videos at least weekly on platforms like YouTube and TikTok in the first quarter of 2020, the proportion had shot up to 54% by the most recent third quarter, Ampere said. The proportion watching weekly influencer videos among adults age 18-24 rose from 77% to 81% over the same span, suggesting older demos are fueling growth for this particular video category in America.
In the UK, the proportion of the 55-64-years cohort increased from 30% to 38% over the same time span.
“The biggest surprise in our latest data wasn’t how popular influencer videos have become — it is how rapidly this trend has extended to older audiences,” said Annabel Yeomans, senior research manager at Ampere Analysis, in a statement.
Ampere Analysis defines an influencer as “someone who creates social media videos, typically on platforms like YouTube or TikTok, sharing content about their activities, opinions, or interests with their audience.”
And according to Ampere, 70% of internet users in the U.S. and UK watch these videos at least once a week, up overall 18% since the first quarter of 2020.
The research company notes that this trend hasn’t gone unnoticed by the major subscription streaming services. For example, Amazon Prime Video now features English influencer Molly Mae Hague in Molly Mae: Behind It All. Disney+ has situated TikTok star Charli D’Amelio and her family in The D’Amelio Show. And Netflix has parlayed the popular online YouTube persona Miss Rachel into the world’s sixth most-watched children’s and family show.
“Streaming services are increasingly partnering with influencers, an approach that first attracted younger viewers and is now gaining traction among older audiences,” Yeomans said.
The surge in influencer video consumption comes as older adults, accessing the platform primarily via connected TV devices, are broadly driving usage growth on YouTube. According to data published earlier this year by eMarketer, U.S. adults older than 55 now spend more time on YouTube than kids under the age of 18 (although 18-34 year-olds remain the heaviest YouTube users at over an our per day).
Ampere notes that adults ages 55-64 delivered the highest growth in YouTube’s monthly viewing between Q1 2020 and Q3 2025, up by 25% in the U.S. and 14% in the UK. In the past year (Q3 2024 to Q3 2025) TikTok monthly active users among that older demo audience grew 6% in the U.S. and 16% in the UK.
“I would expect a lot of young people to be watching YouTube on TV. And they are, but from an indexing standpoint, it's actually the 35-plus crowd where television is their primary device for YouTube, which just kind of shows you that it's not a young person thing. It's not necessarily only a short-form thing,” Wurl CEO Dave Bernath told StreamTV Insider in an interview conducted back in June.
Again, the emergence of platforms like YouTube in the living room through CTV and smart TV devices has made an impact. Ampere also noted that smart TV ownership among U.S. and UK internet users aged 55-64 years jumped from 59% in Q1 2020 to 79% in Q3 2025. More than a quarter of this cohort now says it uses a smart TV monthly to watch YouTube.
“As viewing habits diversify and platforms like YouTube and TikTok become part of living-room viewing, the lines between social and traditional platforms are blurring. As a result, new opportunities for collaboration across different platform types are emerging,” Yeomans said.