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YouTube Model for TV Station Future: Podcasts, As News?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 8 hours ago

Is YouTube a model for where TV is going -- for younger consumers to come back to more traditional-looking video screens?

Nielsen says YouTube now has a commanding lead over all streaming platforms -- at around 11% of all TV and streaming viewing.

For the better part of the last 12 months, the big Google platform has had almost nonstop growth. According to other research, 74% of U.S. adults regularly used YouTube.

We have been told for years that local TV viewership keeps getting older and older -- at least 60-65 years of age and higher -- especially for TV stations with heavy news content.

While there is certainly a mix of users, we know YouTube can attract many younger viewers. So... should local over-the-air TV station programmers think about YouTube more when looking to the future in trying to transform their aging platforms?

One area to look at is podcasts. According to one piece of research, 65% of podcast listeners under the age of 30 prefer to watch their podcast as a piece of video content. For many that means the ease of YouTube.

This makes sense when looking at all the social media mobile apps with heavy video elements. Young users, of course, can get YouTube via mobile, desktop, and increasingly the big TV screen.

The hard part is finding a way to transform local TV station news content. Are video podcasts a model?

For some time, TV platforms -- nationally and locally -- have tried to transform news content to interest young viewers, with weak results. Recent efforts includes Vice Media and Cheddar News.

There are many obstacles for TV stations. First of all, this is on-demand or near on-demand world -- not a local TV station’s main thing. It is still linear TV -- though many stations do have websites, of course, where there is on-demand content.

The good news is that young people don’t necessarily mind advertising, but they want to get to the content quickly. Think TikTok, Instagram and other social media. They want to be in control to tap into stuff, consume, and then move on.

And yet there is some hope: Google executives now report YouTube is now watched on TV more than any other device. So, let's make a somewhat fanciful leap:

Does all this mean that young users/viewers are coming back to TV?