As with the previous post (for TikTok) – here.
The same 29 comedians and the top 3 are again Gold (UK) and Blue (US).
YouTube subscribers
YouTube is a similar story to TikTok in that Subscriber numbers are possibly not as important as Views.
Back in August it was announced (details here) that Jimmy was the first Brit comedian to hit 1.5 m subscribers.
This was kind of blown out the water on December 18th when the subs on his 4 channels hit a total of 1,809,241. On Dec 31st this broke down as:
- Jimmy Carr – 1,729,700
- More Jimmy Carr – 90,200
- Jimmy Carr en Espanol – 60
- Jimmy Carr TV – 7,750
I’m adding them all together, for this report, because MOSTLY the content across the 4 channels is different. The Spanish channel is stand up dubbed with native speakers and the TV channel is clips from shows. These used to just be on the main channel. The main channel and More JC then have some overlap, in that heckle clips may eventually appear on both, but it’s hard to tell by how much.
As anyone can watch content WITHOUT subbing I’m assuming that any casual viewers would eventually unsubscribe if there were too many repeats.
As with the other reports – the variance column, below, is comparing October 20th to December 31st and, as with TikTok, we can see another growth spurt of 129,764 new subs.
How Many Videos?
Who is giving away the most content?
With 514 videos in 2.5 months…we have a winner.
With a current total of 3,180 videos Jimmy’s channels are even sneaking up behind the Joe Rogan podcast (3,517).
Channel Views
And now we get into some BIG numbers.
The screenshot below is the total for Jimmy’s 4 channels, which (yesterday) broke down into:
- Main JC channel – 978,138,280
- More JC – 54,033,811
- Espanol – 37,307
- JC TV – 8,646,656
Overnight those numbers have increased by another 1,383,550 views!
- Main JC channel – 979,372,249
- More JC – 54,138,627
- Espanol – 38,250
- JC TV – 8,690,478
See post on “billion view comic” – here.
Livecounts.io (here) is where these numbers are all coming from. Just a note on using the counters:
- Be patient – sometimes the numbers go up…down and then back up again. It’s a live connection and can sometimes bounce around. Wait a minute or so to let the numbers all settle.
- Some days the total has seemed to freeze, especially over the Xmas / NY period. If I think the connection has stalled I have a 2nd counter that I use, at Socialcounts.org (here).
This leads us to another incredible growth spurt (again, from October 20th to December 31st). Jimmy’s accounts have been viewed another 126 m times in 2.5 months.
The closest Brit to him, from a growth perspective, is Sarah Millican…with 10.8 m
Just focusing on the Brits…so far as YouTube is concerned – Jimmy is King of the Views (below).
Russell Howard polls in 2nd place, for overall total views. Although his growth of 9 m would normally be impressive at that rate it would take him 61 days to catch Jimmy up. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s channels are adding at least another million new views a day.
I’ve said “at least a million” as the 1.3 m may be higher than normal with it being New Year’s Day. People with hangovers and a day off watching comedy!
Best Comedian?
This is kind of tricky to type without sounding catty – but this final part is about my usual gripe – that the press push out any old nonsense with ZERO facts to back up the story / comment.
There was a tabloid story, yesterday, about Peter Kay’s property investments. The article said:
“The funnyman is the UK’s best comedian, ahead of Ricky Gervais and Michael McIntyre.”
On the one hand – comedy is subjective so there’s no such thing as the “UK’s best comedian”. There can be a “wealthiest UK comedian” but describing someone as the “best” is just silly. It can’t be measured. And no way would he be ahead of Gervais…or Jimmy for that matter.
Anyone who has read the stats posted on here today will know that he’s not even close to our most successful comedian. He is virtually unknown outside of the UK and I think the only International show I can think of was one he did in Dubai.
The next report (on this blog) will be amalgamating figures for total followers across the 5 social platforms and, without prejudging the numbers, the “usual” order for Brits is:
- Ricky Gervais
- Jimmy Carr
- Jack Whitehall
- Michael McIntyre
- Russell Howard
- Sarah Millican
- Peter Kay
IMHO – PK is not remotely close to “the best” and this “Top 7” list is probably accurate.
Unfortunately, “journalists” that write Showbiz stories are prone to writing clickbait.
They will write something like “Peter Kay’s tour sold out in xxx minutes”. People that follow comedy will think “Peter Kay stopped touring in 2011 so of COURSE his next tour, in 2022, sold quickly”.
They write “Ricky Gervais had the highest gross for a stand-up performance at the Hollywood Bowl”. People that follow comedy think “the Hollywood Bowl has the same number of seats no matter who plays there – so HOW MUCH did the tickets cost?”
I like facts…
I should perhaps finish up by saying – comedy is a broad church and there is room for absolutely everyone. We all have variations in our sense of humour and no one is right about who is the “best” comedian (including me).
So long as a comedian is selling tickets – then clearly there are xxx people that think they are great. That’s all that matters.
I just get irritated by blanket statements that have no substance behind them. It’s more of a problem than ever now because all of these little discrepancies are being hoovered up by AI and then have the potential to influence what it regurgitates as fact.
I could type here and now that “I’m the best singer in the UK”. If you heard my voice you would know that is DEF not true…but I could still push it into print.
The bottom line is, as Jimmy has said recently on a couple of podcasts, he’s “in the Jimmy Carr business”.
And doing VERY well with that business, from what I can see.
2025 12 31 reports links
- X / Twitter – here
- Facebook – here
- TikTok – here
- Instagram – here
- All 5 social platforms – here
- YT & TikTok views – here
Previous report links for 2025:
- Apr 25 – YouTube figures – here
- May 19 – YouTube figures – here
- May 28 – TikTok figures – here
- May 25 – Facebook figures – here
- May 24 – Instagram figures – here
- Jun 1 – social account totals – here
- July 31 – Social account totals for US/UK comics (5 platforms) – here
- July 31 – Follow on report totalling “most followers” overall – here
- September 13 – most subbed on YouTube mini report – here
- October 22 – impact of Riyadh festival on follower counts? – here
- November 11 – Twitter/X being affected by Online Safety Bill? – here
- November 19 – Twitter/X subscriber losses to date – here
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