Reports: YouTube

Since its launch back in 2005, YouTube has dominated online video with an audience winning combination of user generated content and corporate short form content. While YouTube is more successful in terms of brand recognition and video views than it has ever been, it now faces real competition from video newcomers Facebook and Snapchat.

Facebook is emerging as a serious challenger to YouTube and is building clear momentum that is giving the incumbent cause for concern in a way that few other short form challengers have yet managed to do. The total number of videos viewed by Facebook users was 4 billion a day in April 2015, up from 3 billion only three months earlier.

2014 was undoubtedly streaming’s biggest year yet, growing by 39% and accounting for nearly a third of all digital revenues. But the market is a long distance yet from being in a position where it can be considered established. While free streaming, YouTube in particular, is booming, subscriptions remain confined to niche audiences.

Online TV viewing in the UK is now a mainstream consumer activity. This has been facilitated by near universal levels of internet connectivity and smartphone adoption and driven by the unique role played by national broadcaster the BBC. However while the UK is in the vanguard of video viewing, the dominant position of BBC’s iPlayer ad-free OTT (Over The Top) programming complicates the environment for SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand) services.

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.

YouTube is the globe’s leading digital music service but it delivers comparatively little back to the music industry in direct revenue. Even the one billion dollars paid out in Content ID revenues only represents $0.14 for each of its one billion users per year, since the launch of Content ID in 2007.

The global digital music industry may only be growing steadily (5% in 2013) but beneath the headline number is a richly varied picture of different services, diverse regional growth rates and competing business models. To better understand this marketplace, MIDiA Research conducted a Global Music Services Tracker.

Streaming has arrived and is here to stay, that much is clear. What is not is how it will impact existing music revenue streams. Though neither a business model nor a product, streaming is the lens through which the irresistible force of the shift from ownership to access is best understood.

Content Connectors, devices such as Apple TV, Google’s Chromecast, Amazon Kindle Fire TV and Roku, are set to transform the way in which mainstream consumers interact with digital content. Current adopters of these devices are the most valuable paid content consumers across all content genres, not just the video for which Content Connectors are best known.

Natives and Immigrants demarcate the digital world. While Digital Immigrants bear the baggage of their analogue era past, Digital Natives have only ever know ubiquitous connectivity and content availability. Consequently the digital music behaviour of Digital Natives evolves at a dramatic pace and markedly over indexes against the Digital Immigrants.