Her twerking, hammer-licking, ball-swinging antics have made Miley Cyrus a controversial figure in recent months, but unsurprisingly, they’re proving hugely successful on YouTube.
Cyrus’ was the most-watched YouTube channel in the world in September with 270.1m views according to industry site Tubefilter’s monthly Top 100 chart, with her monthly view-count leaping 222% compared to August.
The main reason for that growth was the official video for her Wrecking Ball single. Released on 9 September, it has since been viewed more than 211m times, although that includes views from 11 days in October too.
The popularity of Miley’s channel saw her overtake YouTube’s biggest star, Swedish gamer Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, whose PewDiePie channel has long dominated Tubefilter’s chart.
He had an impressive September too, with 215.6m views on YouTube, 54.5m behind Cyrus. However, PewDiePie retains a more loyal audience on Google’s video service, with nearly 14.3m subscribers compared to her 2.9m.
Music is still one of the top categories on YouTube, accounting for four of the five most popular channels in September. Turkish music videos channel Mü-Yap (179m views) and the official channels for Katy Perry (162.1m) and Avicii (105m) round out the top five.
Tubefilter notes that music videos service Vevo, which hosts many of those official channels, accounted for 22 of the 100 most popular YouTube channels in September.
Another three belong to major label Warner Music Group, which is the only major label not to work with Vevo. Multi-channel networks Maker Studios and Machinima have six and five channels in the chart respectively.
The popularity of music videos is backed up by research published this week by the Pew Research Center in the US, which claims that 50% of adult American internet users watch music videos online, but that this rises to 81% for 18-29 year-olds.
The Guardian
