Market Data 
- Some YouTube creators are adapting their content for TV screens by producing longer videos.
- Longer content on TV can boost revenue with more ad breaks and higher rates.
- YouTubers shared how they’re optimizing their videos for the big screen.
YouTube wants to be the new TV, and some content creators are doubling down on it to make more money.
The company said in February that TV had surpassed phones as the main place to watch YouTube in the US. It said that on average, viewers were watching more than 1 billion hours’ worth of YouTube on their TVs.
The rising TV viewership is starting to boost ad revenue for some creators.
Jordan Matter, who has 28 million subscribers, makes challenge and skit-based videos featuring his daughter. In the past 28 days, he told Business Insider, 65% of his channel’s total ad revenue came from TV, despite TV viewers accounting for 45% of his total audience.
In December, YouTube said creator earnings from TV were up by more than 30% year over year.
Creators including Matter are developing longer videos and compilations as they chase TV viewers and ad dollars. Longer videos can include more ad breaks, thus boosting revenue.
“If you have a 45-minute video, you can have three or four different ad-break segments,” Dan Weinstein, a cofounder and co-CEO of Underscore Talent, told BI.
Weinstein said that combining existing videos in compilations was also an easy way for short-form content creators to join the TV trend.
“Really funny, viral short-form stuff actually does tend to do pretty well if sort of strung together,” Weinstein said.
Making extra-long videos by piecing together shorter ones
YouTubers don’t need highly produced Netflix-style shows to do well on TV. Victor Potrel, a senior vice president of partnerships and creator services at the digital-media company TheSoul Publishing, said he saw YouTube consumption on the TV as an accelerating trend.
“It’s more the evolution of people gradually changing their consuming habits but wanting the same content on their TV devices,” Potrel said.
TheSoul manages several YouTube channels, including 5-Minute Crafts, Bright Side, and 123 Go. For TV, Potrel said, TheSoul packages videos based on themes such as home decor and builds them into hourslong videos.
“You don’t need to radically change the way that you produce content,” Potrel said. “Mostly it’s been about packaging the content and adapting it for the screen.”
The company said TheSoul’s share of global views on connected TVs rose to 24% in 2024 from 17% in 2022, and watch time increased to 41% from 28%. Global emerging markets have also shown an increase in TV viewership — for instance, views of TheSoul’s content on connected TVs in India doubled from 2022 to 2024, reaching 10%.
Revenue has increased as well. Potrel said longer watch times had led to higher ad rates for TheSoul’s creators.
Reaching different audiences on TVs
YouTubers are trying to appeal to both kids and Gen Z viewers on TV. Their viewing behaviors are very different — kids may sit down to watch more engaging pieces of content, while Gen Zers may listen to videos in the background while multitasking.
For Matter, who makes videos for kids, his team has adapted in two ways: They’ve doubled the length of the videos and elevated production quality with subtitles and video graphics.
Kiana Parker, an executive vice president of programming and content at the sketch-comedy YouTube channel Smosh, said Gen Z and millennial viewers tended to enjoy accessible content on TV that doesn’t require a lot of background knowledge.
“What can you put on and be busy folding your laundry to, or go run out of the room to grab something and come back and still feel like you didn’t miss the entire thing,” Parker said.
Now most of Smosh’s content is 30 to 45 minutes long, comparable to a TV series. The Smosh Pit YouTube channel used to frequently upload 12- to 15-minute videos.
“Our current production value splits the difference between quality but also casualness,” Parker said. “Our editing style is more free-form, where the editors are inserting jokes into the video or we leave in a blooper.”
The Smosh team is continuing to explore new strategies and create content for larger screens — partly because it’s reading the tea leaves on where YouTube is headed as a platform.
“Whenever YouTube is really adamant about a product, it’s always a quiet indicator to really care about it,” Parker said.
