2 days ago
How YouTube won the battle for TV Viewers
SAN BRUNO, Calif.—The headquarters of the world's No. 1 source of video entertainment has none of the trappings of a Hollywood studio. There are no posters of popular shows, no writers pitching ideas, no soundstages and no tourists.
But after pioneering video that we watch on our laptops and phones, YouTube is now the king of Hollywood's home turf: the TV.
YouTube became the most-watched video provider on televisions in the U.S. earlier this year, and its lead has only grown, according to Nielsen data. People now watch YouTube on TV sets more than on their phones or any other device—an average of more than one billion hours each day. That is more viewing than Disney gets from its broadcast network, dozen-plus cable channels and three streaming services combined.
In response, YouTube's influencers, producers and performers—collectively known as creators—are making longer, higher-quality videos that appeal to families and groups of friends watching in their living rooms. YouTube is also rapidly improving its TV app, adding new features to try to keep people watching its free videos longer. (Separately, it also sells YouTube TV, an $83-a-month bundle of channels akin to cable.)
In true Silicon Valley style, the Google-owned company isn't just looking to extend its lead on TVs, but to dominate the future of entertainment.
'Our goal is for the YouTube app to be people's way into as much of the universe of video content that exists on the internet as can be," said Christian Oestlian, YouTube's product manager for connected TV. One way the company is considering keeping people glued to YouTube on their TVs longer, he said, is through personally customized content feeds, like highlights from players on a fantasy football team.
For most of the past 20 years since it was founded, YouTube was an alternative to television, a home for cheap, low-quality ephemera like how-to videos and skateboard tricks that Hollywood worried was distracting people from real entertainment.
YouTube started as a website to watch videos on PCs. It made its way onto televisions in 2010, but the interface was clunky. By the 2020s, a generation that grew up watching internet videos alone on their phones and tablets began watching YouTube together in their living rooms and with their own children. It didn't hurt that as prices rose for Netflix and Disney+, YouTube has remained free.
In the process, it became a media juggernaut. MoffettNathanson analysts estimate YouTube's revenue last year was $54.2 billion, which would make it No. 2 among entertainment companies, behind only Disney.
Now, even the smallest decisions YouTube executives make about how their apps are designed or how their algorithm recommends content can have seismic impacts on global pop culture.
When Kurt Wilms became senior director of product for YouTube on televisions in 2018, the company's TV app was useful if you knew what you wanted to search for and watch. Since then, the company has worked to make its TV app similar to the ones on phones, with an algorithm that recommends what to watch next and the ability to subscribe and comment. The key differences: Ad formats designed for the TV, a search engine that suggests content that looks best on a big screen, and the ability to navigate it all with a remote.
A coming YouTube feature, called 'shows," can automatically queue the next episode on a channel, rather than serving whatever the recommendation algorithm thinks you'll like best from billions of options. That will let YouTube viewers watch full 'seasons" for the first time and pick up where they left off, as they are used to doing on Netflix.
'It's going to be great for the 'lean back' use case of YouTube," said Wilms.
Many young people viewing YouTube on their TVs are perfectly happy to watch amateurs play videogames, spout opinions and share every detail of their personal lives. But increasingly, they are also watching the type of shows that used to be found exclusively on broadcast or cable channels: sketch comedy, documentaries, animation and talk shows. The latter is disappearing from traditional networks, as evidenced by CBS's decision to cancel its Stephen Colbert late-night show.
'Good Mythical Morning" on YouTube is a lot like an old-fashioned network talk show. Every weekday, hosts Rhett McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln Neal—known to their fans as Rhett & Link—joke around with each other and their crew, perform blind taste tests and take part in bizarre contests.
What started nearly 20 years ago with the two friends working alone in North Carolina has grown into a channel with 19.3 million subscribers. While L.A. is bleeding jobs in traditional film and TV production, Rhett & Link employ some 100 people in a complex just outside the city that houses stages, a writers' room, a prop-making office and interns.
During a recent taping, the youthful-looking 47-year-olds were preparing to taste food a crew member's grandmother had canned decades ago. 'There's only one item we know is definitely unsafe," the director warned them. 'Otherwise, you guys can do your normal smell-lick situation."
TVs became the most popular screen for people to watch 'Good Mythical Morning" late last year and now account for 53% of all viewing. The hosts say longtime fans have grown up watching the show alone in their childhood bedrooms and now watch with a partner or friends in their own living rooms.
'There's this phenomenon of, 'Oh wait, there's the YouTube icon on this television I just mounted in my first apartment. I can do this here now,'" said Neal.
Similarly, viewership on TVs surpassed mobile late last year for the popular YouTube interview show 'Hot Ones," on which celebrities like Billie Eilish and Kevin Hart answer questions as they eat increasingly spicy chicken wings. Dhar Mann Studios says TVs became the most popular device for viewers of its inspirational videos for kids in early 2024, and about 54% now watch that way.
Research from Tubular Labs shows viewers on YouTube are spending substantially more time with long content—meaning more than 15 minutes—than two years ago, and they are doing it the most on televisions. YouTube producers are noticing and making longer videos, which keep audiences glued to their channel for longer stretches.
It also helps producers earn more. Google typically shares 55% of commercial revenue with creators, and the most valuable ads are often 'mid-rolls" that run partway through a video when a viewer has already committed time to watching and wants to finish. Longer videos have more mid-roll ads and make more money.
'There has been a deluge of interest in long-form YouTube content with creators," said Andrew Graham, an agent at Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency who represents digital talent. 'Short-form content doesn't monetize nearly as well."
Comedian Quenlin Blackwell's videos were typically 10 minutes to 30 minutes long just last year, and she made them with her best friends. Now her sketches, travelogues and cooking collaborations with online celebrities last an hour or longer and are made with 10 to 15 writers, camera operators and other professional collaborators.
'People's attention spans haven't been that bad," she said. 'It's what we've been feeding them."
On YouTube, visibility relies entirely on Google's inscrutable algorithm. Executives say they have no interest in deciding what gets made for their service or how it gets promoted.
In 2015, YouTube hired a former MTV executive to develop original series for paying subscribers, but the effort flopped. The most notable result was 'Cobra Kai," a 'Karate Kid" follow-up that became a hit only after it moved to Netflix.
Now, Hollywood-style content comes from partners that sell subscriptions to their streaming services inside the YouTube app. Those deals give companies like Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount access to a large, young audience, but means their shows stream beside virtually anything. People who pay for HBO Max inside YouTube and search for 'The White Lotus" might see the latest episode of the series, a fan breakdown of the season and a video from Thailand about flowers.
YouTube leaves content decisions largely up to its independent creators. One of the few exceptions is sports, where the company is paying for the rights to stream games. Viewership in that category is up 45% so far this year on YouTube. Executives say they want to be the home for fans leading up to a game, during it, and for clips afterward.
YouTube has been the exclusive home of the NFL Sunday Ticket since 2023. It pays the sports league $2 billion annually and charges viewers between $378 and $480 a season. Now it is bringing games to its free, ad-supported service.
YouTube bought the exclusive rights to soccer tournaments in Brazil, and in September, it will stream an NFL game on its free platform for the first time—a sign Google believes it may be able to cover the hefty cost of sports rights through advertising alone.
It has brought concepts created for Sunday Ticket like 'multi-view," in which people can watch several games at once, to the main app. And it's experimenting with features that take advantage of its army of sports influencers, including letting some announce games.
'50 % of consumers have told us that they'd rather learn about a live event from a creator than actually watch the live event themselves," said Oestlian.
As the rest of Hollywood eyes YouTube enviously, elite creators have become a hot commodity. Analysts at Wells Fargo recently said that, to compete for young audiences, Netflix should consider spending $500 million to persuade 20 to 30 creators of top YouTube channels to switch to its platform.
Popular YouTube creators have been open to making new shows for Hollywood streaming services, like MrBeast's BeastGames on Amazon Prime Video, or to selling old episodes, like Ms. Rachel's kids' videos on Netflix. But they say there is no check big enough to persuade them to abandon YouTube channels they spent years creating.
'The opportunity isn't to try and defeat YouTube," said Sean Atkins, chief executive of the Dhar Mann Studios YouTube channel. 'That game has already been won."
Write to Ben Fritz at
