On the video platform YouTube, a subscriber to a channel is a user who, by selecting that channel's subscribe button, has chosen to receive content released by the channel. Each user's subscription feed consists of videos recently published by channels to which the account is subscribed. The ability to subscribe to users was introduced in October 2005, and the website began publishing a list of its "most subscribed Members" in April 2006. An early archive of the list dates to May 2006, at which time Smosh, with fewer than three thousand subscribers, occupied the number one position. Since then, at least ten other YouTube channels have possessed the platform's largest subscriber count; these include Judson Laipply, Brookers, geriatric1927, lonelygirl15, nigahiga, Fred, Ray, PewDiePie, and YouTube. The most-subscribed channel as of July 2020 is T-Series, an Indian music video publisher operated by the entertainment company of the same name. With a subscriber count of 147 million, the channel has held this distinction since April 2019.
Most-subscribed channels
The following table lists the fifty most-subscribed channels on YouTube, with each total rounded down to the nearest million subscribers, as well as the network, primary language, and content category of each channel. The channels are ordered by number of subscribers; those whose displayed subscriber counts are identical are listed alphabetically. Automatically-generated channels that lack their own videos and channels that have been made effectively obsolete as a result of the transferral of their content are excluded., 27 of the 51 channels primarily produce content in English. "N/A" signifies that the channel is self-owned and unaffiliated with any multi-channel network.
Historical progression of most-subscribed channels
The following table lists the nineteen distinct runs as the most-subscribed YouTube channel recorded since May 2006. Only runs lasting at least 24 hours are included.
In mid-2018, the subscriber count of the Indian musicvideo channel T-Series rapidly approached that of Swedish web comedian and Let's Player PewDiePie, who at the time was the most-subscribed user on YouTube. As a result, fans of PewDiePie and T-Series, other YouTubers and celebrities showed their support for both channels. During the competition, both channels gained a large amount of subscribers at a rapid rate. The two channels surpassed each other in subscriber count on a number of occasions in February, March, and April 2019.
