YouTube Pitches Itself as a Partner for TV, Including as a Place for Longform Content and Full Episodes
“YouTube might be a companion to your online business and enhance your online business.” That is how Andreas Briese, a prime government on the Google-owned video platform in his position as nation director for Germany and regional director for Central and Northern Europe (CCE), pitched YouTube as a companion for the TV trade, somewhat than a rival, in the course of the opening keynote of NATPE Budapest 2025 on Tuesday.
“YouTube might be a companion to interact with new audiences, to unlock new income streams and additionally innovate,” he argued.
He pointed to a beforehand disclosed determine to spotlight the attain and energy of YouTube. The platform, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary this yr, paid $70 billion-plus to creators, artists and media firms during the last three years, he talked about, concluding: “No different platform is working on that scale.”
Bries additionally emphasised that YouTube wants TV and different content material companions, citing YouTube CEO Neal Mohan who beforehand defined the video platform’s exit from creating content material itself by acknowledging:
“We weren’t good at selecting content material.”
As a consequence, “we’re solely profitable if you’re profitable,” together with by YouTube’s revenue-share mannequin, Briese stated, with content material companions bringing the premium content material and expertise that audiences crave. In flip, YouTube permits for monetization of content material and information sharing instruments that present alternatives to optimize content material, amongst different issues.
“Tv grew to become the main gadget of YouTube within the U.S.,” Briese additionally highlighted in his NATPE Budapest keynote. “It’s essentially the most watched streaming service on TV gadgets, forward of Netflix, Prime, Hulu, and so on. We all know in lots of different markets that can also be the case. YouTube is at present serving 1 billion hours of TV watch time a day.”
Additionally secret’s that fifty p.c of this TV watch time is “coming from content material that’s longer than 20 minutes, which implies longform content material is driving TV consumption of YouTube,” he stated.
Outlining the YouTube promoting income mannequin, Briese emphasised a facet that isn’t at all times absolutely understood. “We share revenues with our companions — that’s the bread and butter enterprise of YouTube,” he defined. “What’s necessary to know is revenues don’t scale with views on our platform, they scale with watch time. The extra content material is watched, the extra we’re in a position to promote advert breaks earlier than and in between your content material. And this is the reason watch time is de facto, actually necessary,” and that’s why producers and broadcasters look to permit customers to interact extra with long-form content material on YouTube, “as a result of that’s driving watch time.”
He talked about the instance of Channel 4 within the U.Ok., which has shared information that exhibits that the broadcaster elevated its longform content material on YouTube by 81 p.c, however boosted complete time seen on YouTube by 105 p.c, full episode views by 169 p.c and YouTube income by 78 p.c. Briese didn’t element what interval that information was for.
By way of full episodes of TV content material coming to YouTube, “we’ve got seen fascinating approaches, which each pay tribute to the truth that it’s a distribution platform, but in addition a advertising and marketing platform,” the chief informed NATPE Budapest. For instance, Paramount+, one week after the launch of the primary episode of Lioness launched the identical episode in its full size on YouTube for a time period “to drive, in fact, watch time, but in addition as a promotional software to drive consciousness of their very own service,” Briese defined.
Equally, Disney+ introduced the total first season of Andor to YouTube earlier than the launch of season 2 “as a loyalty instrument to create consciousness and additionally to drive site visitors again to Disney+,” he stated. “What we do see is, particularly once we speak about producers and broadcasters, that always longform content material represents a minority of their uploads, however the majority of their revenues and their watch time.”
The YouTube exec additionally pointed to YouTube as a place for innovation for content material companions or, as he referred to as it, a “petri dish to check new codecs.” Within the gaming area, that has been the case. And extra not too long ago, “you see, for instance, for dwell streaming a development towards group watching of dwell movies,” Briese stated.
NATPE Budapest, which has positioned itself as a platform for deal-making, change and content material discovery, as nicely as “a launchpad for the following wave of codecs, scripted hits, and cross-border partnerships,” stated Monday that its newest version was welcoming greater than 750 delegates from 65-plus nations, together with greater than 400 consumers, up from final yr.