YouTube Watch Time by Format in Germany — 2025
Results as of
Review Full Year 2025: Traditional YouTube videos hold a stable 85% share of watch time in Germany throughout 2025 Shorts +2.9pp Apr→Dec
Info
- Sample size
- n = 24,606
- Data date
- Full Year 2025
- Segment
- All segments
- Platform
- YouTube
- Market
- Germany
Analysis
Despite the global buzz around YouTube Shorts, long and mid-form videos together captured a rock-steady ~85% share of total YouTube watch time among German users in 2025 — split almost evenly between mid-form (1–10 min, 42.7%) and long-form (>10 min, 42.0%), with Shorts (<1 min) accounting for the remaining 15.3%.
Shorts are growing — just not taking over
Shortsʼ share of YouTube Nutzungsdauer Deutschland did climb from 13.8% in April to 16.7% in December, a +2.9 percentage-point within-year shift that mirrors a broadly reported industry trend: YouTube Shorts now accounts for up to 10% of total watch time on the platform in the U.S., while the German figure runs higher at ~15%. Yet the trajectory is gradual, not disruptive. Revenue generation on YouTube still heavily favors long-form content, which may partly explain why the platform continues to invest in watch-time depth rather than Shorts volume. For marketers planning YouTube Kurzvideos vs. Langvideos budgets, the data is unambiguous: traditional video commands the vast majority of German viewing hours, with Shorts functioning as a discovery layer rather than a primary format. See also the age-group breakdown of format composition for how this balance shifts across cohorts.
This analysis is based on public segment data. For deeper cuts, use our Enterprise interface.
Methodology
Watch time shares are calculated from German YouTube users aged 16 and over who had at least one active YouTube day in 2025, with non-ad video events recorded between 1 January and 31 December 2025. Videos are grouped into three length categories: Shorts (under 60 seconds), mid-form (1–10 minutes), and long-form (over 10 minutes). Total watch time is capped per session to remove idle or sentinel events. Videos where duration metadata was unavailable are excluded, representing roughly 26–35% of events with no directional trend across the year.