Is YouTube about to play nice with TV broadcasters?
Complementary isn’t a word to best describe YouTube’s relationship with the TV industry and yet it seems the video service wants it to be moving forward.
Antagonistic, provocative and disruptive are adjectives that normally dominate column inches when the video service decides to talk about television. But at its annual Brandcast sales pitch to advertisers, the company’s senior executives took a softer approach that was far from the anti-TV stance it took at last year’s event. In fact, “today we’re in a world where YouTube loves being on TV…and TV loves being on YouTube,” claimed Matt Brittin, president of Google’s business and operations across EMEA.
Brittin’s colleague Alison Lomax, director of brand solutions at Google (see interview above), expanded on the shift, claiming YouTube works closely “with all broadcasters – that’s the global broadcast companies and production companies, as well as the more local ones."
“What’s fascinating is we know YouTube is viewed massively on mobile but actually our fastest growing platform is on the TV screen,” she continued. “That’s really interesting from an advertiser’s perspective because we know people are watching longer content on YouTube and so it means that for advertisers reaching their audience, they can do so in different ways. It also demonstrates the sharing factor - a lot of people are watching YouTube in a shared capacity, it’s not one-on-one – that’s also really interesting for advertisers.”
It might still want advertisers to feed it more of their TV budgets, but the way YouTube convinces them to do so is shifting from selling it is a more effective channel to one that is complementary to the square box. However, it gave little away as to how this would happen during an event that was light on content but made for it in spectacle, with Carpool Karaoke creator and comedian James Corden hosting the night.
He talked about how YouTube has been pivotal to the success of his stint on The Late Show, allowing him to repurpose one of the most conventional televised formats for people to share and (more importantly) watch their favourite parts (like Carpool Karaoke) regardless of when it aired – “I realised I didn't have to make a show for any time slot because we had the internet and more than that we had YouTube,” said Corden.
With testimonials like this, it seems a big part of its tweaked pitch to TV bosses is convincing them to create formats that can be shared. Had Corden and his team not done this then they might not have been able to rack up over 2.1 billion YouTube video views and gained 8.4 million subscribers to the show’s channel over the last 18 months. Or seen the Carpool Karaoke with Adele clock up 138 million views since January to become the most watched videos of 2016.
For all the reach it can give to shows, YouTube still perturbs TV executives. When YouTube claimed earlier this year it delivers better returns than TV, broadcasters insisted it wasn’t surprising because brands spend relatively low sums on it. When Facebook revealed its own plans for TV to The Drum in October Thinkbox – the marketing body for TV in the UK – noted that it wasn’t as “aggressively anti-TV” as Google.
The tit-for-tat between YouTube and TV execs plays out amid the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon.
There is still a huge, core demographic tuning in to watch TV. Yes, it could be argued that YouTube draws in younger audiences yet people still watch TV, including 18-35’s. Indeed, there’s a commonly-held view among media observers that the real threat to their commercial coffers is the on-demand services that are spending large sums to poach viewers away from the BBC, Sky et al.
Amid all this, YouTube sits somewhere in the middle; neither friend nor foe to the TV industry, the video service is somewhat of a riposte to the likes of Netflix, while they work out what and how to adapt their beleaguered business models. So much so that FreemantleMedia Group’s chief executive Cecile Frot-Coutaz believes that YouTube will play a key role in shaping how global TV shows are produced.
Like how Corden packaged The Late Show to be broken up into smaller, snackeable parts, Frot-Coutaz sees potential in creating shows that walk the line between long and short-form content. Getting that balance right is key at a time when data suggests younger viewers are less captivated by longer video on demand. An eMarketer report from earlier this year found YouTube use continues to rise among children in the UK. Yet while digital video appears to be a staple of their digital diet, longer-form video on demand (VOD) is less commonly consumed.
“We believe the next global format, the next ‘Got Talent’, the next ‘Idol’ or ‘X-Factor’ can be created here on YouTube with you [advertisers], with a younger audience, with more data and better engagement that’s unbound by border and time slots,” said Frot-Coutaz at Brandcast.
“That’s where we’re making increasing investments. Our television properties from around the world - even those, for example made in the US or Asia - generate tremendous views from audiences right here in the UK. That means more brand-safe, premium content, reaching lots of viewers for everyone in this room to advertise against.”
Beyond FreemantleMedia, YouTube wants to collaborate with more independent production houses, particularly focusing on second-screen viewing, nurturing new talent and creating content for its channels.
However, like broadcasters, not all independents are receptive, according to media observers: primarily because not all independent production houses fully-grasp how to create short-form content. Secondly, although TV budgets are being squeezed, traditional independents still see broadcast/traditional TV as more lucrative. They can own the IP they create. Whereas for digital, they’re very much work for hire – they come and do a job, hand over the content and very rarely get to promote their involvement.
Time will tell whether YouTube can make nice with an industry it has such a fractious relationship. The potential is there, according to GroupM's chief digital officer Rob Norman.
He added: "The perfect symbiosis between YouTube and television occurs when 'sampling' on YouTube leads to high value impressions on TV and a share of revenue between Google and broadcaster from monetisation on YouTube."
Additional reporting by Katie Deighton.