The Alphabet-owned platform is hoovering up eyeballs and ad dollars, rewriting the pecking order in Tinseltown.

With an estimated standalone value of $550 billion—nearly 30 per cent of its parent’s total worth—YouTube is smashing the telly game.

MoffettNathanson said that last year, Youtube raked in $54.2 billion, second only to Disney, but analysts reckon it’ll leapfrog the Mouse House in 2025, becoming the top dog in engagement and revenue.

“YouTube has the potential to become the central aggregator for all things professional video, positioning itself to capture a share of the $85 billion consumer pay-TV market and the approximately $30 billion streaming market. Netflix market in the U.S.,” they wrote in a Monday research note.

“On monetisation, when comparing YouTube’s massive TV screen engagement to its estimated TV revenue, it remains significantly under-monetised relative to its scaled reach and differentiated offering. This signals a substantial runway for improving its monetisation strategy.”

The analysts see it carving into the $85 billion Pay TV pie and a $30 billion streaming market outside of Netflix’s clutches.

Comparing valuation multiples across media players—Netflix (10.5x revenue), Meta (8.8x), Roku (2.4x), Warner Bros. Discovery (1.4x), Fox (1.3x), and Disney (1.3x)—YouTube’s scale and reach suggest it's been punching below its financial weight. With a few monetisation tweaks, it could flatten what’s left of the traditional TV landscape.