According to analysis from Tubular, with T-Series crossing 67 million subscribers on YouTube on Wednesday, 24 October, PewDiePie is set to lose the title for the world’s most popular YouTube channel since 2013.
“It’s incredible to see how media companies like T-Series are flourishing in this space,” said a spokesperson for Tubular Labs, a video analytics platform that has been measuring the rise of T-Series’ channel over the last couple of months.
“Whilst YouTube continues to be a pivotal platform for influencers like PewDiePie, media companies have really doubled down on the platform this year. T-Series and its sister channels now see well over 4 billion views per month, making it YouTube’s most viewed media company globally.”
PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, hit that milestone earlier this month but is only a few hundred thousand subscribers ahead of his rival.
The T-Series takeover has proved controversial among some YouTubers, given that it is a major corporate brand that will hold the vaunted honour of being the platform’s most popular channel.
There could be a few reasons why T-Series can go past PewDiePie. One of the most important ones is that T-Series is a company with several people working there. T-Series isn’t an individual, like Kjellberg, but a Mumbai-based film and entertainment company which has been around for decades. They post around six videos a day as opposed to two from the Swede. Felix may be falling behind because he’s just a one-man-army.
T-Series’ YouTube channel comprises entirely Indian music videos. Its most viewed video is the song “Lahore” by Punjabi singer Guru Randhawa with 601 million views.
