Reports: YouTube Channels

Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have spurred a scripted drama renaissance and, in doing, so have trigged a content licensing arms race. Traditional TV networks have had to increase their spending to compete with these new streaming TV networks.

The announcement in June 2017 that YouTube had 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users was the first official user number since the 2013 tally of One billion unique monthly users. This metrics reticence stands in stark contrast to rivals in the attention economy, such as Facebook, which provides quarterly updates on its continued growth in active users.

The YouTube landscape is changing. While North America still dominates in terms of channel subscribers and views, the second places for these metrics are now held by Latin America and Asia respectively. Both emerging regions show diverging consumption patterns, with Latin America over indexing on the proportion of subscribers-to-views, and Asia over indexing on the number of views in relation to subscribers.

Views of the top 100 YouTube channels doubled from 184 billion in February 2015 to 372 billion in October 2015. At the same time, the number of subscribers to the top 100 channels doubled to 1.4 billion. Despite Google sticking with its 2013 official statement of one billion monthly unique users for YouTube, it is clear that it is exploding in popularity.

The music video has undergone a major transformation since its original conceptualisation in the 1970s and commercialisation in the 1980s. Originally a tool to drive sales, MTV transformed it into a product in its own right and then YouTube did the same thing for the digital era.

YouTube’s supercharged success over the last decade shows signs of having created a monopolistic mindset in the company that leaves it ripe for disruption. Its runaway success as both a content discovery platform and an end destination for video consumption, paradoxically also means it is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success.

YouTube’s first decade established the video category that is still widely referred to as short form video, even though it is only music videos that any longer cling religiously to the few minutes format. Ten years on, YouTube’s channel hierarchy is emerging not just as the key navigation interface but also the foundation of a new content creator ecosystem.

With 1 billion monthly users, YouTube is the third most popular online destination globally making it the world’s de facto pure play video destination. A whole generation has grown up with YouTube as their preferred video content destination, most often bypassing traditional TV brands.