YouTube Crashing the TV Party Was The Media Story of 2024
The ad industry seems ready to finally grapple with this mega change
Back in September, I gave a presentation during which I talked about YouTube’s rise in connected television, and I looked at data from Nielsen’s The Gauge since it first published in June of 2021. At that point:
Streaming represented 26% of TV, Cable 39% - while YouTube was at 6%
The November 2024 Gauge data recently came out, and not only is streaming at 41.6% (!), but YouTube landed at 10.8%
That nearly 5-point share swing occurred over just three-plus years. In a medium that still exhibits a lot of inertia (hence the enduring power of broadcast and the large number of people who still watch Law and Order SVU live each week) YouTube’s growth is seismic. Again, it’s worth noting that this is 11% of all TV viewing, not just streaming. For all the hype surrounding Netflix, its share is stuck at 7.7%
Indeed, YouTube’s ascent into television is the story of the year in 2024, one that will likely have massive ramifications for media ad spending, consumer habits, Hollywood production cycles, global culture and more for years to come.
Even as digital media commands an ever-increasing share of ad spending, TV is still a $170 billion global ad market, soaking up 22% of share, per Dentsu - and is still seen as the most influential media vehicle. So YouTube crashing the party here really matters
Yet, given the speed of this climb, it’s understandable that it’s still very tough for many in the industry to wrap their heads around YouTube’s place in the living room What to do with YouTube - how to fund it, judge it, measure it, etc. - is the other media planning strategy story of 2024 - and one that won’t be fully written for quite some time.
“People are spending hours on YouTube, even though that's not traditional TV, right?” said Regine Fung, senior Director, US & Global Paid Media, at E.L.F. Beauty on my podcast this week.
“But I think it's important for us to be kind of flexible on what that definition of TV is.”
Yet despite Fung’s claim, things are only changing so fast. Madison and Wall’s Brian Wieser says in his newsletter that YouTube “is not typically considered television by most large advertisers.”
Is that true across the board? As part of a multi-part video series with my partners at Pixability, I recently talked to five top media buyers about the state of YouTube, and what the Google-owned, UGC-filled platform’s incursion in CTV has done to the broader television advertising market.
Many say that things are changing.
“YouTube is often underestimated,” said Shelby Saville, Chief Investment Officer, Publicis Media US. While some clients don’t agree, to Saville “It’s TV.”
“We can’t sit in our ivory towers and decide what TV is. if it’s content that they love, it’s TV.”
So if YouTube is TV, that means the TV market, “changes it pretty fundamentally,” said Danny Weisman, Head of Planning at Noble People. “The cost of entry is typically less [on YouTube], not to mention the scale, data.”
Of course, not everyone is on board. As Madison and Wall analyst Brian Wieser has written repeatedly, “YouTube… is not typically considered television by most large advertisers.”
Yes, YouTube is facing major challenges if it wants to take full advantage of its TV reach:
Measurement: Brands aren’t always sure what numbers to use to evaluate YouTube? Views? Some sort of reach/frequency equivalent? A unique form of quantifying creator engagement or influence?
Models: Along those same lines, how does YouTube show up in the Marketing Mix Models that big brands love? Is it underrepresented?
Budget flow: We’ve talked about this a lot, but YouTube is often funded from half a dozen vehicles - sometimes TV budgets, sometimes social video, sometimes creators, sometimes retail media or programmatic
Perception: there are plenty of folks in the industry who still see creator content as subpar or risky
The ‘what is it for?’ question: Again, YouTube fits a number of ad tactics, which is a both strength and a hindrance at times
All of these factors don’t make it simple. But per Fung, brands and agencies need to push past these issues.
“I think once you kind of expand your definition of TV and see video very agnostically,” said ELF’s Fung. ‘You have a lot of opportunity to not just go broad, but also go deep.”
Just how deep brands go will be a huge 2025 question. But they won’t be able to ignore YouTube for much longer.
Hey, do you want to sponsor my newsletter or podcast in 2025? Let’s talk! mike@shieldsstrategic.com.