by Hrefna Helgadóttir 18 Jan 2017
It's a little difficult to see on the graph, but the yellow indicates videos that are not music videos. They're also bolded in the list.
Here's the full list:
The most obvious and striking thing about this list is clearly that 38 out of the 40 on the list are music videos.
The 2016 IFPI report read pretty clearly that most people listen to music in a legal way, and the platform of choice is YouTube by a mile. In a nice harmony, the most watched YouTube video are also music videos.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis hit Thrift Shop is just hit the 1 billion views mark, so the numbers here are staggering. It should therefore not be so surprising that only two singles from 2016 managed to crack this list (This Is What You Came For & Work From Home).
Justin Bieber is possibly the king of YouTube with four singles on the list, more than any other artist.
Katy Perry, Adele, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars and Fifth Harmony all have two entries on the list.