S&P 500 on YouTube Study

Key takeaways

1. 252 of the 410 S&P 500 homepages we could read link to YouTube (61%), almost always from the footer (96% of the channel links we followed); 13 play a YouTube video on the homepage itself. See details
2. We found a company YouTube channel for 328 of the 503 constituents. The median channel has 12,450 subscribers; 11 have a million or more and 144 fewer than 10,000. See details
3. 20 of those 328 channels (6%) uploaded nothing in the 12 months to November 1, 2026; the active ones posted a median of 50 videos in that year. See details
4. Shorts made up 36% of the active channels' uploads in the year, and 224 of the 308 active channels posted at least one. See details
5. Materials and information technology companies link to YouTube most often (77% of homepages each) and consumer discretionary least (32%). See details

How many S&P 500 homepages link to YouTube?

We loaded the homepage of every company in the S&P 500 (constituent list, 503 stocks) in a browser on October 31, 2026, scrolled to the bottom and recorded every link to YouTube and every embedded YouTube player. We could read 410; the rest blocked automated browsers or did not load. 252 of those 410 (61%) link to YouTube, 247 of them to a channel, and 13 play a YouTube video on the homepage. 1 link to a channel that no longer exists.

How big are company channels?

We matched 328 of the 503 constituents to a company YouTube channel: 245 from homepage links, 3 from a video the homepage linked, and 84 from the channel ID Wikidata records (P2397). The median channel had 12,450 subscribers on November 1, 2026 (YouTube Data API). 11 had a million or more, and 144 had fewer than 10,000.

Are the channels still active?

20 of the 328 channels (6%) uploaded nothing in the 12 months to November 1, 2026, 1 of them never. 279 uploaded in the last 90 days. The 308 active channels posted a median of 50 videos in the year (counted from each channel's uploads playlist, YouTube Data API).

Do companies post Shorts?

224 of the 308 active channels posted at least one Short in the year, and Shorts were 36% of their uploads. A Short here is an upload listed in the channel's own Shorts playlist.

Which sectors use YouTube most?

Materials and information technology homepages link to YouTube most often (77% each), consumer discretionary homepages least (32%), among sectors with at least 15 homepages we could read.

What this means

• A footer link is not a strategy. 9 homepages link a channel that posted nothing in the last year.
• Cadence is modest. The median active channel posts about 4 videos a month.
• Shorts are now part of the mix for most active company channels (224 of 308).

Mark Studios edits corporate video and YouTube channels for companies. Our corporate video statistics cover the market figures.

How we ran the study

Companies. The 503 stocks on Wikipedia's List of S&P 500 companies as of revision 1382178819, with each company's official website from Wikidata, matched by its SEC CIK or Wikipedia article.

Homepages. Each homepage loaded in headless Chromium at 1366 x 900, waited 5 seconds and scrolled to the bottom; links inside web components were included. A homepage counts as read when it returned a page without an error status.

Channels. The channel a homepage links to most often (footer first), resolved to its ID from the channel page; otherwise the channel of a linked video; otherwise Wikidata's channel ID. Statistics and the latest 50 entries of each channel's uploads, Shorts and live playlists from the YouTube Data API, read November 1, 2026. A company channel can be a corporate channel while consumer brands run their own; we did not add brand channels. We read every resolved channel's title against the company's name and dropped 4 that belong to someone else (ARE: homepage video embedded from The Galien Foundation; HSIC: Wikidata points to Covetrus DACH, a former unit; MCD: Wikidata points to McDonaldsArabia, a regional franchise channel; TT: footer links Ingersoll Rand Air Compressors, a separate company since 2020); those companies count as having no channel.

Limitations

• Blocked homepages. 93 homepages blocked automated browsers or failed to load; their channel comes from Wikidata where it has one.
• One channel per company. Brand channels (a beverage maker's soft drinks, a carmaker's models) are not counted.
• 50 uploads. A channel that posted more than 50 videos in the year is counted at 50 (marked + in the table).

How to cite this study

Link to the section you use, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/sp500-youtube-study#activity. To cite the study as a whole:

Mark Studios. "S&P 500 on YouTube Study." Published November 1, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/sp500-youtube-study

@misc{markstudios_sp500_youtube_study_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{S&P 500 on YouTube Study}},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/sp500-youtube-study},
  note = {Last verified 2026-11-01}
}

Our counts and the CSV are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.

Sources

Per-company data (CSV)

Widely quoted video statistics on other topics are traced to their origin, with a verdict on each, in our research fact-check.

1. Wikipedia, List of S&P 500 companies (revision 1382178819). Accessed 2026-11-01.
2. Wikidata, Property P2397: YouTube channel ID. Accessed 2026-11-01.
3. Google for Developers, YouTube Data API: Channels. Accessed 2026-11-01.
4. Google for Developers, YouTube Data API: PlaylistItems. Accessed 2026-11-01.

Update policy and change log

We plan to rerun the read every six months. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

• November 1, 2026: First published.