YouTube in Sweden reached a new threshold in 2025, with more people watching the platform on an average day than traditional scheduled television, according to the latest Media Barometer (Mediebarometern) from Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg. The shift marks a symbolic moment in one of Europe’s most digitally advanced media markets: 52% of Swedes aged 9 to 85 used YouTube daily, while 46% watched linear TV.
The figures do not mean that television has disappeared from Swedish households. Streamed TV remains the most widely used form of moving image, reaching 68% of the population on an average day. But the new data show that the old boundary between television and online video is becoming less relevant, especially as older viewers increasingly find their way to digital platforms.
YouTube in Sweden has moved beyond a youth platform
For years, YouTube’s strength in Sweden was associated mainly with younger users. The 2025 Media Barometer confirms that young people remain the platform’s most frequent audience, but the fastest growth is now taking place among older age groups.
That detail matters. If YouTube’s rise were limited to teenagers and young adults, it could be read as a generational habit that traditional broadcasters might still contain through streaming services of their own. Instead, the latest data suggest that online video has become part of ordinary media consumption across a broader section of Swedish society.
Nordicom’s survey, based on responses from around 6,000 randomly selected people aged 9 to 85, has been carried out since 1979 and is described by the institute as the world’s oldest continuous study of its kind. This long time frame gives the 2025 result added weight: the change is not a short-term fluctuation, but part of a longer move from scheduled media to on-demand platforms.
Linear TV is declining, but streamed television is still ahead
The most important distinction is between linear TV and streamed TV. Linear television refers to scheduled programming watched as it is broadcast, while streamed TV includes services such as public broadcasters’ online platforms and subscription services.
In Sweden, almost the entire population still watches moving images in some form. Nordicom found that 95% of people aged 9 to 85 consumed moving images on an average day in 2025. Within that category, streamed TV had the largest reach at 68%, followed by YouTube at 52%, while scheduled TV fell to 46%.
This means that the story is not simply one of television losing to YouTube. It is more accurately a transformation of television itself. Swedish audiences are still watching video content, news, entertainment and series, but they increasingly expect to choose when, where and how they watch it.
The pattern also affects time spent with different media. Nordicom reported that 48% of the population watched streamed TV for more than one hour on an average day, compared with 19% for YouTube. Linear TV still keeps a substantial older and more habitual audience, but its daily reach is no longer the default measure of mass media presence.
Sweden’s media habits show a wider Nordic shift
Sweden is not an isolated case. Across the Nordic region, public service media, private broadcasters and newspapers have been adapting to a media environment shaped by streaming, smartphones and global platforms.
Norway offers a useful comparison. The latest Norwegian Media Barometer from Statistics Norway, covering 2024, found that 46% of the population watched linear TV on an average day, the same share now recorded for Sweden in 2025. But daily YouTube use in Norway was lower, at 27%, when measured as a social medium. The comparison suggests that Sweden may be further ahead in the normalisation of YouTube as a daily video platform, while the broader regional trend is similar: traditional media remain important, but their formats are changing.
For Nordic public broadcasters, the challenge is not only technological. Institutions such as SVT, NRK, DR and Yle still play a central role in news, culture and democratic information. In Sweden, Nordicom found that SVT remained the most used news service, reaching 49% of the population on an average day. The issue is how that role is maintained when audiences increasingly move through platforms whose logic is shaped by recommendation systems, creator economies and advertising models outside national media policy.
The 2026 election will test the new video landscape
The timing gives the Swedish data political relevance. Sweden is heading into a parliamentary election year in 2026, and the migration of audiences to YouTube and social media could affect how political messages circulate.
SVT has noted that the growth of YouTube may influence the political content users encounter, especially because several major companies restrict or ban paid political advertising on their platforms. The result is a more fragmented communication environment, where parties, creators and commentators compete for attention through formats that do not resemble traditional television debates or campaign broadcasts.
This does not automatically mean that Swedish voters will be less informed. Digital platforms can make political content more accessible, especially for younger people and for audiences who do not follow scheduled news. But they also raise familiar questions about transparency, algorithmic visibility and the balance between professional journalism and personality-driven political communication.
A symbolic threshold for Nordic and European media
The rise of YouTube in Sweden is therefore more than a Swedish platform story. It reflects a wider change across the Nordic region and Europe, where video consumption is moving away from fixed schedules and towards on-demand platforms shaped by global technology companies.
Traditional television is not disappearing. Public service broadcasters remain trusted and widely used, while streaming services have become part of the daily media diet. But the fact that YouTube has overtaken scheduled TV in Sweden signals that the centre of gravity has moved. Similar pressures are visible in other countries, even if the pace differs from market to market: younger audiences have already changed their habits, and older viewers are increasingly following.
For media companies, regulators and political actors, the challenge is now to understand a public sphere where television no longer necessarily means a TV channel, and where mass audiences are increasingly assembled outside the old schedule. Sweden may be one of the clearest examples of this shift, but it is not an exception. It is part of a broader transformation in how Europeans watch, receive news and encounter political communication.
