YouTube's Neal Mohan Fires Back at Netflix CEO's "Killing Time" Dig

Jun. 17, 2025

YouTube has big streamers on the defense.

During a panel discussion at ADWEEK House in Cannes, Ankler Media founder Janice Min asked YouTube CEO Neal Mohan to respond to recent comments made by Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. In March, Sarandos described YouTube as a platform for “killing time” while Netflix is a platform for “spending time” with premium storytelling.

Min told Mohan:

"You’ve gotten under Hollywood’s skin."

 

In response, Mohan said that creators are at the center of YouTube’s business model, and that the company’s mission is to help them be successful. He added that consumers choose where they spend their time.

Mohan asked:

“Who am I to say what’s spending time, engaging time, quality time, killing time? It’s all of us as consumers—the 2 billion people that come to YouTube every single day—we get to decide how to spend our time.”

 

People now watch YouTube on TVs more often than on phones, the company announced in February. Nielsen reports that the platform makes up over 10% of TV watch time. Rather than that being a reflection of YouTube becoming more like traditional TV, Mohan said that TV is becoming more like YouTube as consumers demand more creator content.

YouTube’s growing as part of a robust creator economy, he argued, and brands can tap into that ecosystem by advertising on the platform.

Mohan pointed to two recent campaigns that saw significant search uplift thanks to creator partnerships on YouTube. In one, an undisclosed beauty brand saw over 250% increase in search after a creator campaign, he said. In the second campaign, Sephora saw 100% search uplift with a holiday picking campaign that used creators to produce YouTube Shorts.

YouTube has also been gunning for more professional content. The company signed a seven-year deal with the NFL in 2022 for rights to the league’s Sunday Ticket, and sports content overall has grown 30% over the past year, according to Min. YouTube has also been drawing in an audience of podcast fans that differs from other major audio platforms. True crime show Rotten Mango, for example, added roughly two million viewers by moving over to YouTube, Mohan noted.

In response to concerns about how AI might impact creators and creativity, Mohan pledged that YouTube would protect the people making videos on its platform.

He said:

"Our core principle is always going to be about protecting the rights of creative people, just like we did with content. There’s a reason why there’s tens of millions of creators on our platform—because nobody turned them away when they first had that amazing creative idea and posted it on their YouTube."