APAC audiences engage most with either ultra-short updates (0–30s) or deep-dive long-form videos (15–20 minutes). Mid-length videos (2–5 minutes) dominate upload volume but deliver less engagement per video—suggesting publishers may be optimizing for output rather than impact.
Q1 Insights | November 11, 2025 – February 8, 2026
Tubular News & Politics Insights In Action
A quarterly overview of global news coverage on social
Optimal Video Length
APAC News & Politics Media Publishers
Source: Tubular Intelligence | YouTube | Creator Country: APAC | Creator Type: Media Publishers | Content Genre: News & Politics | Video Duration | Uploads vs. Engagements Per Video | 11/11/25-2/8/26
Optimal Time to Post
LATAM News & Politics Media Publishers
LATAM publishers post most often in the evening, but engagement peaks early in the morning. The highest engagement per video occurs around 3:00-3:50 AM CST, suggesting publishers could gain more impact by shifting distribution to earlier hours with less competition.
Source: Tubular Intelligence | Instagram | Creator Country: LATAM | Creator Type: Media Publishers | Content Genre: News & Politics | Upload Time | Uploads vs. Engagements Per Video | 11/11/25-2/8/26
The Most Viewed News & Politics TikTok Hashtags in EMEA
EMEA’s top News & Politics hashtags blend global political flashpoints (like #trump or #venezuela), major broadcaster branding (#bbcnews), and country identifiers. The mix shows publishers are using hashtags for more than categorization—strategically boosting search visibility, reinforcing brand authority, and helping international audiences track major stories beyond their own borders.
Source: Tubular Intelligence | Instagram | Creator Country: EMEA | Creator Type: Media Publishers | Content Genre: News & Politics | Content Category: News, Politics & Government Hashtags | Engagements | 11/11/25-2/8/26
Most Popular Cross-Platform Videos by US News & Politics Publishers
TikTok audiences don’t engage with “hard news” the same way they do on other social platforms. While breaking global stories drive massive viewership, engagement surges when content sparks emotional or cultural reactions — especially humor. Publishers that understand this dynamic can design stories not just for awareness, but for conversation.
Source: Tubular Intelligence | TikTok | Creator Country: USA | Creator Type: Media Publishers | Content Genre: News & Politics | Top Videos by Views and Engagements | 11/11/25-2/8/26
@2x.png?width=482&height=321&name=Election%20Day%20Engagement%20(Hourly)@2x.png)
Optimal Video Length: EMEA News & Politics Media Publishers
On YouTube, 2–5 min is the go-to length for EMEA News & Politics publishers — but it drives the lowest engagement. Greater opportunities lie in short clips (0–30s) and long-form (15–20 min), both earning stronger engagements per video.
Source: Tubular Intelligence | YouTube | Creator Country: EMEA | Creator Type: Media Publishers | Content Genre: News & Politics | Video Duration | Uploads vs. Engagements Per Video | 5/26/25-8/26/25
Optimal Time to Post: APAC News & Politics Media Publishers
The most viewed video across social platforms about Trump featured his acceptance speech posted on YouTube by Fox News. The most viewed video about Harris was a live results YouTube video posted by the Associated Press.
Source: Tubular Intelligence | TikTok | Creator Country: APAC | Creator Type: Media Publishers | Content Genre: News & Politics | Upload Time | Uploads vs. Views Per Video | 5/26/25-8/26/25
Most Viewed News & Politics Instagram Hashtags in LATAM
Trump's episode on The Joe Rogan Experience earned 40 million YouTube views in four days. Harris’s episode of Call Her Daddy was not posted to YouTube, but TikTok videos discussing her interview garnered 75 million views in October.
Source: Tubular Intelligence | Instagram | Creator Country: LATAM | Creator Type: Media Publishers | Content Genre: News & Politics | Hashtags | Views | 5/26/25-8/26/25
Most-Viewed US News & Politics Video Across Platforms
Want to post on TikTok but don’t know what to cover? There’s no need to overthink it. Your TikTok coverage doesn’t need to be stylized or produced, and it doesn’t need a fancy voice over. Good news stories like this one are perennially popular and are often preferred to hard news stories. ABC laid simple title text over a video that was sent in by a situational bystander. The most viewed video about a political event was Fox New’s TikTok of Iranian missiles being intercepted by Israeli interceptors which earned 63M views within 30 days.
Source: Tubular Intelligence | Instagram | Creator Country: LATAM | Creator Type: Media Publishers | Content Genre: News & Politics | Hashtags | Views | 5/26/25-8/26/25
Data Bites
Snackable insights on swing states, wedge issues, and third-party candidates.
VP Viewership Increases Following Debate
Following the recent VP debate, weekly YouTube views on content about the candidates skyrocketed by 204%. That said, viewership following the debate did not come close to the views following Walz’s nomination in August which garnered 110M more YouTube views.
Different Matchup, More Engagement
Engagement with articles featuring Donald Trump and Kamala Harris peaked the day after their first debate. Trump racked up 1.52 million engaged hours and Harris was close behind with 1.45M. Engagement with both candidates increased more than 170% from the day before, and eclipsed the previous debates’ high of 1.3M.
ABC’s Debate Livestream Leads YouTube Coverage
The most viewed YouTube video about the September 10th presidential debate within the first 48 hours was ABC's live debate coverage, which garnered 13.2 million views and 149k engagements.
Walz Starts Slow, but Ends Up on Top
When it first became apparent that Kamala Harris would need a new running mate, Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly received much more engaged time than Tim Walz. Over the ensuing weeks, however, Walz closed the gap, and on the day of his official announcement, readers spent 645,000 engaged hours with articles about him.
TikTok Top Platform for Walz
Prior to President Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Tim Walz had very little traction on social media. When he entered the VP conversation, however, daily engagement on multiple platforms increased sharply. On TikTok, for example, the Minnesota governor saw 1.5 million engagements on August 7th alone.
Harris Enters Race, Surges on TikTok
Since Joe Biden's decision to step down and endorse Kamala Harris, engagement with the VP on TikTok has surged. Her 27 million engagements in the last week total more than the rest of the year combined.
Pressure Builds on Biden to Step Down
Following the US presidential debate, many media publishers and Americans questioned Biden’s ability to win the race. The discussion generated 250 million YouTube views in the 3 weeks following. Viewership peaked on July 9th, after Biden’s NATO address.
Trump Assassination Attempt on a Global Stage
The media publisher posting the most YouTube content about the assassination attempt is Sky News Australia. Out of the top ten publishers, seven are Indian and only two are American: CBS News and Forbes Breaking News.
Site Pageviews About Trump Skyrocket
The day before the attempted assassination on Trump, pageviews about the former president were around 40 million with 1 million engaged hours. The day after the shooting, pageviews soared by 5x to 220 million, while engaged time grew by 3x.
US Presidential Debate Wins for Best Comedy
Tubular’s new Video Trends feature indicates that “comedy” and “humor” were among the fastest growing trends that sprung off the June 27th debate, totaling +150 YouTube videos for a combined +20 million views in 7 days.
Views Surge After US Presidential Debate
YouTube views on Trump increased by 160% the week of the debate while Biden views surged by 186%.
Alternate Candidates’ Post-Debate Bump
While Trump and Biden still dominated our attention in the hours after the debate, the number of articles about Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saw an increase that began after 4am EST on June 28. Average engagement with these articles also jumped from about 25 seconds to more than 60 seconds the day after the debate.
Mexico Elects Its First Female President
TikTok amassed 75% of overall viewership about the 2024 Mexican election from June 2023 to June 2024. While Claudia Sheinbaum won in the polls, Gálvez won on social. From April 1, 2024 to June 14, #XochitlGalvez garnered 3.47 billion views — 80% more than #ClaudiaSheinbaum.
Modi's Engagement Pays Off at Polls
From January through May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi averaged more than 4x the engagement of Rahul Gandhi, the representative of the opposition Congress party. After declaring victory on June 4, Modi’s engagement soared to 15x his previous daily averaged engaged hours.
Engagement with Trump Verdict
On May 30th, about 15 minutes after the guilty verdict was read, engagement with Trump-related content soared to a peak of 12,265,867 seconds per minute, and didn't return to pre-verdict levels until June 1.
Trump Hush Money Trial Views Surge
Trump’s hush money trial drew 1.1 billion views on YouTube from Apr. 1 – Jun. 3. On TikTok, top hashtags around this topic included #votetrump and #funnymoments. MSNBC's most viewed TikTok video featured Robert De Niro criticizing Trump to reporters.
Topics Engaging the Swing States
Climate change remains the most popular topic in all 7 swing states we’re watching, but when we look closer at Pennsylvania, we see that articles related to Israel/Palestine are averaging the third-most engaged hours.
Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life
While pro-choice and pro-life content both had a similar audience overlap with abortion content throughout the year, pro-life content became much more prominent in March and April.
Trump’s Arrest Tops the TikTok Charts
The #1 most watched and engaged TikTok video about the US Presidential Elections and swing state Georgia is a repurposed television clip posted by CBS Evening News discussing Trump’s surrender at the Fulton County Jail.
Arizona Abortion Ban
From April 8–14th, YouTube coverage about the abortion ban in Arizona got nearly 14 million views in a single week. The most watched video was a clip from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert discussing the issue, which won 1.7 million YouTube views in just 3 days.
Trump’s Trial Drives TikTok Views
In April 2024, YouTube viewership about Trump’s Criminal Trial climbed to over 310 million. On TikTok, the most watched video was posted by MSNBC and won 6.6 million views in 7 days. The video features a dismissed juror from his trial who remarked “He looks less orange”.
RFK Jr. Leans into TikTok
While neither Trump nor Biden are on TikTok, RFK Jr. has posted more than 160 videos on the platform in 2024, accumulating 97.9 million views and 16 million engagements. RFK's monthly TikTok views surged by 258% from January to March.
Catch up on previous election coverage:
Navigating the digital media maze of the 2024 US presidential election
Going deeper on the topics driving the 2024 US presidential election
Swing State Stories & State Specific Campaigns
The #1 most watched and engaged video about the US Presidential election and the swing state of Georgia over the past year was posted on TikTok by CBS Evening News. This repurposed television clip discusses Trump’s surrender at the Fulton County Jail.
While ‘Climate Change’ is the most popular topic by total engaged hours across all 7 swing states, articles related to Israel and Palestine consistently popped up in the top 3 topics for all states, including Arizona.
Algo contundente
Dile más al lector
El encabezado y su respectivo resumen nos dicen más sobre lo que ofreces y el encabezado del formulario cierra el negocio. Aquí puedes explicar por qué tu oferta es tan buena que merece la pena rellenar un formulario.
Recuerda:
- Las viñetas son geniales
- para mostrar los beneficios y
- convertir visitantes en leads.
Algo contundente
Dile más al lector
El encabezado y su respectivo resumen nos dicen más sobre lo que ofreces y el encabezado del formulario cierra el negocio. Aquí puedes explicar por qué tu oferta es tan buena que merece la pena rellenar un formulario.
Recuerda:
- Las viñetas son geniales
- para mostrar los beneficios y
- convertir visitantes en leads.
Algo contundente
Dile más al lector
El encabezado y su respectivo resumen nos dicen más sobre lo que ofreces y el encabezado del formulario cierra el negocio. Aquí puedes explicar por qué tu oferta es tan buena que merece la pena rellenar un formulario.
Recuerda:
- Las viñetas son geniales
- para mostrar los beneficios y
- convertir visitantes en leads.
Algo contundente
Dile más al lector
El encabezado y su respectivo resumen nos dicen más sobre lo que ofreces y el encabezado del formulario cierra el negocio. Aquí puedes explicar por qué tu oferta es tan buena que merece la pena rellenar un formulario.
Recuerda:
- Las viñetas son geniales
- para mostrar los beneficios y
- convertir visitantes en leads.
Algo contundente
Dile más al lector
El encabezado y su respectivo resumen nos dicen más sobre lo que ofreces y el encabezado del formulario cierra el negocio. Aquí puedes explicar por qué tu oferta es tan buena que merece la pena rellenar un formulario.
Recuerda:
- Las viñetas son geniales
- para mostrar los beneficios y
- convertir visitantes en leads.
