Everybody wants to be Youtube

In the first quarter of the year, YouTube generated over $8 billion in advertising revenue, a figure that, according to Bloomberg, exceeds analysts' estimates. The platform is the most used on smart TVs in the United States, surpassing even Netflix and linear television. The significant growth of YouTube TV can be attributed to the quality of the service, which includes live programs from more than a hundred broadcasters, including CNN, Comedy Central, CBS, and many others, in addition to sports programs from regional broadcasters. The number of subscribers to the service has exceeded 8 million, with a total of approximately 1 billion hours of television viewing each day. With these numbers, according to Variety, the company seems destined to become the largest pay-TV subscription distribution channel in the United States. In the past 12 months, 64% of Generation Z, born between the late 1990s and early 2000s, have chosen YouTube to consume content. And the same goes for those belonging to the so-called "previous generation," the Millennials. But it's actually a transgenerational trend: as Wired  writes, even “the future of children's television is not television,” but a series of YouTube channels – it is not surprising that one of the most viewed in the world is specifically designed for babies and children. Furthermore, the redesign of the YouTube app installable on smart TVs was recently presented: as the developers themselves say, the goal was to provide an even more satisfying and immersive experience, optimizing navigation via the remote control, based on the increasingly frequent use of the platform via television.

YouTube vs TikTok

TikTok is considering introducing long videos up to 30 minutes to test the consumption of more in-depth content compared to traditional short clips. “If at first YouTube was forced to follow TikTok and Instagram in the field of short vertical content by launching its section dedicated to Shorts, today it is the others who imitate it, trying to replicate its success on the television screen,” says Andrea Girolami, journalist, content manager, and author of the newsletter Scrolling Infinito. “TikTok in particular is attempting the daring move and inviting its users to publish longer and horizontal videos, hoping to land on television.” The possibility of publishing long videos up to 30 minutes on TikTok, if introduced, would offer more monetization opportunities to many creators primarily present on YouTube. But now, thinking of the two platforms as active players in different fields has become reductive.

“The truth is that TikTok and YouTube do not play in two different leagues but in the same one,” adds Girolami. “Everyone is playing the same game: our attention. Not only TikTok and YouTube, but also Netflix, Amazon, Fortnite, and GTA, no matter if they are entertainment platforms, video streaming, or video game systems.” The new TikTok feature would also promote the presence of more structured content, such as short documentaries, short films, or movie previews, more suitable for the television format. “Think about it: all social networks are just copying each other,” continues Girolami. “Copying a competitor's technological feature is very easy: look at the stories that Instagram took from Snapchat or the short vertical videos that Instagram and YouTube took from TikTok. What is difficult to replicate is the community of creators who produce quality content and consequently attract an audience. This is precisely how one understands who has the advantage between TikTok and YouTube. For YouTube, copying TikTok by creating its Shorts section was quite easy (technological innovation) because it already had a community of creators capable of making both long and short content. On the other hand, for TikTok, convincing its community of creators and the public to watch long videos will be much more complicated (content innovation) and not at all guaranteed."