YouTube has taken a strong position in the entertainment world. The TV in the living room is now occupied by the video platform. More than 1 billion hours of YouTube content have been watched worldwide this year.
YouTube, which started as a simple video sharing platform in 2005, has faced various challenges. But currently it is far ahead of other streaming platforms.
Kurt Wilms, YouTube's senior director of TV product management, said that in 2024, viewers around the world will have streamed more than one billion hours of content on TV every day. What kind of content they are viewing has become even more important than where the content is being viewed from.
This year, the rate of watching sports content on YouTube has increased by more than 30 percent. Because viewers have opted for YouTube for post-match interviews and highlights instead of watching the entire match.
Children's programs also gained popularity on YouTube in 2024. But the biggest surprise is people's interest in 'podcast'.
This year there has been a huge interest in podcasts on YouTube. Podcasts that started as audio formats have now evolved into video formats and audiences are getting used to watching them more and more. YouTube users stream more than 400 million hours of podcasts each month from living room devices. This means that the boundaries between audio and video podcasts are blurring. Content creators tell their stories by adding not just words or text but also images, videos, audio, graphics, animations, and other visual elements. In this way, viewers are more interested in watching content on YouTube.
'It's like watching late-night talk shows,' says Kurt Wilms.
The rise of YouTube streaming viewing rates on living room TVs is not isolated. YouTube is precisely planning to maintain this position. Content creators have also chimed in on YouTube's plan. The number of 4K video uploads will increase by more than 35 percent in 2024, which is more suitable for modern television sets.
Wilms also said there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of creators who derive a large portion of their income from content viewed on TV.
