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2025: the Year of YouTube on TV

Happy Monday Peaceniks. This post is a sneak peek at my Top Ten Predictions for 2025: #3. Next year will be The Year of YouTube on TV.

For years, I’ve been screeching & preaching how YouTube was more than just a TV competitor. It is both Big Media’s biggest competition on television and simultaneously, the best potential broadcasting partner for television.

In October, I wrote a report using Barb data that showed why Public Service Media in the UK must take the threat to their relevancy more seriously and lean into YouTube far more strenuously as a solution. The data demonstrates how audiences on broadcast and TV apps are very different from those on YouTube and social video. The report advises traditional Media players - specifically PSMs - to utilize YouTube’s reach to connect with the viewers under 35 they are missing and generate ad dollars they are not currently capturing.

Over the last two years, I have spoken, written, and kvetched directly to Media players in the US, Europe, and particularly Public Service Media around the world, about building YouTube into their business plans or lose badly to those who do.

This year, I had that conversation with the CBC. They made a concerted effort to build YouTube into their model, publishing 500 episodes of long form series, reaching all new audiences, and surpassing 1 billion views for the first time. The results speak to the expert execution of the strategy. The trend speaks to its wider application.

I had a similar confab with big brains at Channel 4, about integrating YouTube deeper into their distribution. As Matt Risley demonstrates, Channel 4 management dove in and the C4 team found new younger viewers and generated brand new revenues.

This week, ITV, who have clearly been following the conversation, announced a massive deal to bring their original series and news to YouTube.

“Hundreds of hours of ITV shows are about to hit YouTube while the UK commercial net has hired a Channel 4 exec to run a dedicated YouTube sales team.

Genres from scripted to entertainment to reality comprise the deal. Genre-based channels including ITV News and ITV Sport will be developed alongside channels for specific shows, while ITV will create and develop fan content specially tailored for YouTube.”

After taking heat for continuously hocking TV people about this, I will gladly take some credit for these shifts. More importantly however, I share these case studies to demonstrate that I spotted this trend early, talk about it often, and that many of my prognostics on the subject have become reality.

Why do I tell you this?

Because one of my big predictions for next year is that the YouTube television tide will continue to rise: 2025 will be the year of YouTube on TV.

Oddly, after all my ranting, despite tons of data and heaps of headlines, many in our industry are still unaware how big YouTube is on TV.