YouTube Channel Growth How Native Content Strategies Will Underpin Success

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The 20,000 Foot View

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.  Alongside music, native YouTube creators are the fastest growing category of channels and dominate site revenue views and subscribers.

Key Findings

• The        fastest growing YouTube channels in the three months from December 2014 to February 2015 were all YouTube native creators and music artists 
• The YouTube channel landscape is changing – music accounts for        of the top        YouTube channels but only        of the fastest growing
• PewDiePie and Taylor Swift grew fastest, both have core Digital Native appeal 
• These two channels added new subscribers at a rate nearly double that of the other top ten channels
• YouTube native creators and artists dominate YouTube channel views
• Despite dynamic growth YouTube native creators still only account for just over a quarter of views
       of US consumers are YouTube channel subscribers, of whom        have been subscribed for a year or more
• YouTube subscribers skew young but are far from pure Digital Natives, with penetration rising to        among under        but a third of        to        year olds also subscribe
• Channel success will increasingly depend on using the native creator play book

Companies mentioned: YouTube, Vessel, Smile Time, Netflix, BBC, Hulu, Facebook, Twitter, twitch