The top branded video of the week is a reporter who turned influencer explaining why Verizon’s free upgrades keep pace with her hectic life, and it earned 48 million views for the telecom company. That puts Jeannette Reyes, formerly a journalist, at the top of Gospel Stats’ latest Brand Report, which tracks sponsorships across YouTube.
The channel belongs to a creator named Reyes, who goes by the handle msnewslady, and her Short is built around one single promise: Verizon’s annual upgrade’s service. She describes herself as a busy entrepreneur balancing podcasts, YouTube uploads, and family time, and she says the carrier’. That promise, she says, is what keeps her organized. In another part of the video, Reyes turns to technology for help, asking Google’s chatbot Gemini to come up with talking points for an upcoming podcast interview.
Verizon’s Most-Watched Partner
Reyes wasn’t Verizon’s only buy this week. The soccer-talk channel Men in Blazers got a Verizon sponsor for video #5,258. That number suggests the partnership runs deep for the brand, though the report does not say how many videos that total represents.
Reyes has shifted from traditional journalism into digital content creation, and she describes her digital brand as helping companies “tell better stories,” with Verizon among the brands she works with. Her Short format is built for quick consumption, and it reached a large audience.
“My life keeps changing so my phone has to keep up.”
The Enigma Codebreaker
Veritasium’s second spot on the list is a deep dive into the Nazi Enigma machine, a 50-minute video that drew 16 million views. It covers World War II codebreaking, the genius of mathematicians like Alan Turing and Joan Clarke, and the mechanics of the German codebox itself. The channel’s sponsor is Incogni, which promises to scrub exposed personal information from data brokers’ collections.
The report notes that Incogni is a prolific YouTuber sponsor, having paid for more than 60 videos this week alone, which makes it one of the busiest brands in the space.
PewDiePie’s Farewell
The OG YouTuber announced that his monthly vlog series was ending, and the post took third place with 12 million views. He said the vlogs were coming to a close, following through on plans he had set out earlier this year. The series focused on his life outside the internet, featuring his wife Marzia and their son Björn.
The announcement video features PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, explaining that his son Björn has grown old enough for him to feel uneasy about uploading videos until the boy reaches an age where he can make a conscious choice about whether he wants to be online or not. Kjellberg’s reasoning addresses one of the most hotly debated categories of content across social media: family vlogs.
True Crime’s Ad Problem
The fourth and final main entry is a body cam account from Dr Insanity covering a crime story. It describes how Albert Peña disappeared after his last known whereabouts were at a bar in Mountainair, New Mexico. Law enforcement initiated an inquiry, and roughly 100 miles distant, another county’s officers stopped Moises Lopez, Jaylene Lewark, Cady Landrum, and Manuel Lopez, who were said to have just disposed of Peña’s corpse.
True crime can be tough to place ads on, but Dr Insanity doesn’t seem to struggle. He regularly works with some of YouTube’s biggest-presence sponsors, including Chime, which paid for nearly 20 other videos this week. Past uploads have advertised Zocdoc, PDS Debt, BetterHelp, Morgan & Morgan, and HelloFresh, all of which run marketing on numerous videos every single week.
The Robot That Won’t Promote AI
Maker’s Muse earned the bonus spot for building a fighting robot with flexible flippers made from thermoplastic polyurethane. The channel declines to endorse AI companies or gambling apps, and its video attracted 241,191 views.
Maker’s Muse’s creator said they look for people still doing old-fashioned robotics instead of the uncanny valley servant girls they see on Silicon Valley stages. The battle bot is a time-honored tradition for robotics enthusiasts, and this channel is keeping it alive.
What the Numbers Show
The ranking shows a mix of formats and subjects. Reyes’ personal story is the most viewed, followed by a historical documentary, a celebrity farewell, a crime page, and a maker project. The bonus spot is a fraction of the others’ numbers, but it lands on the list anyway.
Family vlogging is a troubled field, according to the report. Young people whose parents made money off of them online a decade ago are now speaking out about what that was actually like, and many of their stories are negative. The report goes on to say that today’s worries include the risk that AI systems could produce child sexual abuse material that mimics video content of real children.
Why This List Matters
This ranking is part of a wider series of reports on sponsorships within the creator economy published by Gospel. To be included, videos must launch alongside an official brand partner, and the figures are drawn entirely from Gospel Stats.
The report is available to download as part of Gospel’s YouTube 2025 Sponsorship Landscape Report. The weekly report is a snapshot of what brands are paying for, and it shows that big names like PewDiePie and true crime channels still command attention.
The Verdict
A reporter’s’s personal story, a history lesson, a celebrity announcement, a crime page, and a maker project all found audiences willing to watch ads. Reyes’ spot at the top of the list proves that branded content can work anywhere. It is amusing precisely because it is unexpected — a former journalist explaining why she needs a free upgrade to keep up with her own life.
This document offers a helpful look at what companies are investing in and where they are putting their funds. It reveals that Incogni ranks among the most active sponsors in the field, while Chime has found a spot on true crime pages even as advertisers face difficulties with that kind of content.
This list captures a single week on YouTube, showing which brands are ready to pay for their content to be seen alongside ads, and which types of stories viewers are willing to watch with advertising attached. The complete data from the report can be downloaded, and since the list is published weekly, the picture shifts from one week to the next.
The current leader is a reporter who quit journalism and instead won a far larger audience by sharing her own story.
- Reyes’ Verizon-sponsored Short topped the list at 48 million views.
- Veritasium’s Enigma machine video ranked second with 16 million views.
- PewDiePie’s vlog farewell announcement placed third with 12 million views.
- Dr Insanity’s crime story came in fourth with its reported figure.
- Maker’s Muse’s fighting robot project rounded out the list in the bonus spot.
See the video the story is built around at Tubefilter.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.