YouTube Ad Growth Slows to 9% as Google Pitches TV Budgets in India's Ratings Blackout

YouTube's advertising revenue grew 9% to $11.21 billion in the September quarter, slower than a year earlier, according to Alphabet's results released on 28 October 2026, while Google Search and other revenue rose 12% to $63.35 billion.

Viewing on TV screens is now more than a third of YouTube's ad revenue. "In Q3, living room accounted for over 1/3 of total YouTube Ads revenues," Google's chief business officer Philipp Schindler said, BestMediaInfo reported.

The quarter in numbers

• YouTube ads: $11.21 billion, up 9% from $10.26 billion. A year earlier, growth was about 15%, BestMediaInfo reported.
• Google Search and other: $63.35 billion, up 12% from $56.57 billion.
• Total Google advertising: $82.01 billion, up about 11%.
• Alphabet revenue: $127.58 billion, up 25%, with Google Cloud more than doubling.

The India angle

In India, Google is pitching YouTube's connected-TV reach to the big FMCG, auto and durables advertisers that traditionally buy television, at a time when BARC's TV ratings have been suspended since March, BestMediaInfo reported. It cited about 96 million YouTube viewers on connected TVs in India, and Kantar data showing linear TV reaching about 680 million people a month against about 570 million for YouTube across mobile and TV.

Broadcasters are already feeling the blackout: TV ad activity fell 8.6% while digital grew 24.5%, and some of India's biggest advertisers are rethinking TV spend, as HUL's 9% ad-spend cut shows.