Summary
- YouTube dominates TV streaming, surpassing traditional media.
- Creators are adapting to demand by creating longer videos, potentially replacing old formats.
- Concerns arise over YouTube’s popularity, leading to a lack of competition.
The audience measurement firm Nielsen recently reported on the total TV usage by media companies for the month of April. While we’ve known for some time that YouTube is watched more on TV than any other platform, it’s also clear that YouTube is watched more on TV than any other service. Of course, Google has worked hard to ensure YouTube works well on TVs by teaming up with manufacturers, and it appears that this investment is majorly paying off.
Still, YouTube has more than a few weaknesses; a large portion of its content is unpolished, poorly recorded/edited, and tends to lean toward the shorter side of things. To put this in perspective, there aren’t many creator-made sitcoms on the service; that level of polish, know-how, and money isn’t the kind of thing available to the ordinary person. However, times are changing with creator videos publishing at longer and longer lengths (via Bloomberg), which could mean the old formats of yesteryear may be on their way out the door as YouTube increasingly fills the void.
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Creators are leaning into the fact that YouTube is watched more on TV than anywhere else
Videos are getting longer to meet demand
Source: Nielsen
Looking at Nielsen’s numbers for April, it’s easy to see that YouTube is very much in the lead, 1.7% ahead of Disney, with Netflix in fifth place. These estimates take into account an entire media company’s properties, which explains why Netflix is fifth, but at the end of the day, it is clear YouTube is the current king of streaming on TV, outpacing every traditional format with user-made content.
This has led to a realization among creators that longer content is something users are looking for as they move away from traditional media, which is why many popular creators have doubled or tripled the length of their content. Podcasts are trending longer for the same reason, and now that it’s cheaper than ever to film and edit your own video, some creators are already playing with familiar formats like sitcoms. One way or another, it looks like YouTube is evolving into the home for our TVs, with creators more than ready to meet demand while beating the pants off traditional media.
Then again, should YouTube conquer TV for good, all Google has to do is pull the ladder up to squash creators and open the doors to corporations, which is why it’s never a good thing to see one platform grow too popular. Competition is a necessity of a healthy market, and so far, it’s looking like YouTube doesn’t have any.
