YouTube made up nearly 10% of all viewership on connected and traditional TVs in the U.S. in May, according to Nielsen. Netflix ranked second, claiming 7.6% of viewership.
Some media executives see YouTube as a companion platform to subscription streaming services and cable TV — an unwieldy behemoth of non-narrative, creator-led content with a social media slant that doesn't really fit the New York-Hollywood nexus of professional media. Others — even at times the same executives — view YouTube as an existential threat to the entertainment industry, stealing viewership from subscription streaming services and, with it, the cultural center of American youth.
"I do think it snuck up on people that YouTube was as important a presence in people's lives and people's viewing experiences not just on the phone but in the living room," said Tara Walpert Levy, YouTube's vice president of Americas, in an interview. You're betraying your audience. You're leaving YouTube to act, and then you're not posting online anymore, and you're asking them to wait on a project that's in development for what? A year, two years? People are going to forget about you, girl. That's how the internet works.
According to internal research, Disney executives concluded that younger Americans use YouTube as an online encyclopedia, said one of the people familiar with the company's discussions. That's led the company to focus on the benefits of the platform's discovery functionality while also programming against it, the person said.
But simply curating feeds within a content vertical now feels like a "YouTube 1.0 strategy" given how TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have redefined short-form viewing, according to Nathanson. Broski's audience, which she described as Generation Z and young millennial women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, ballooned during the pandemic. Stuck at home with limited social options, hundreds of thousands of people found Broski as they searched for fresh, real-time content.
YouTube also benefits from a low barrier to entry to create content and from instant feedback through comments from fans that often help shape future content immediately. That model can't be replicated in a scripted form, where full seasons of TV shows are premade and rolled out on specific schedules.