YouTube is friend not foe, Eduardo Brandini tells traditional TV biz
Eduardo Brandini, head of TV and film, sports, and news at YouTube Brazil
CONTENT AMERICAS: The traditional TV industry should see YouTube as a potential partner allowing access to new audiences and revenue streams instead of a competitor for eyeballs and advertisers, delegates here in Miami heard yesterday.
In his keynote presentation at Content Americas, Eduardo Brandini, head of TV and film, sports, and news at YouTube Brazil, put the emphasis squarely on how the Google-owned video-sharing site has been working with studios, broadcasters, news outlets and sports rights holders in recent years.
“We don’t acquire or commission content ourselves, but we do work with many content partners, based on audience complementarity, so they can reach younger audiences and tap into new revenue streams,” he said.
He cited examples such as The Presidential Debates the platform screened in Brazil in 2022, in partnership with broadcaster Bandeirantes; and the creator-focused episodes of entrepreneur format Shark Tank, produced in partnership with Brazilian broadcaster Sony Channel and prodco Floresta Produções.
Brandini also spoke of “a new way to watch live sport” that YouTube has created: “Live sports used to occupy the whole of Sunday; now it’s available 24/7 every day, everywhere.
“That expanded watchtime means that 80% of Brazilians believe YouTube is revealing new ways of watching and enjoying sports content, whether it’s live, on-demand, highlights, challenges, roundtables, memes or shorts.”
In Brazil, YouTube has launched CazéTV, an online channel partnership with sports commentator and vlogger Casimiro Miguel Vieira da Silva Ferreira, which has 17.3 million subscribers.
“Creators have many different ways of connecting with their audience on the platform, which is why they see YouTube as their main base. Another reason, of course, is that we are the only platform with a real monetisation mechanism.”
In terms of other stats, Brandini said YouTube has two billion users, who upload 500 hours of content every minute. More than a billion hours of content and 70 billion vertical shorts are viewed each day, with more than 92% reach of 18- to 34-year-olds in the US.
“There are currently two million YouTube creators around the world who generate revenue from the platform. The YouTube Partner Program is more than a monetisation program, it is the largest and most comprehensive fund for content creation in the world, producing original stories and supporting diverse voices,” he said.
“In the last three years, we’ve paid out more than US$30bn to content creators, artists and media companies. YouTube is the main source of income for creators, and these people will continue to find new ways to create relevant content across all screens and storytelling formats.
“In the past, studios and production companies decided what would be created and acted as gatekeepers for the content that would be available to viewers. But technological advances have unleashed creativity and led to the emergence of an incredible variety of modern creators and media publishers.”
Another reason the traditional TV industry should see YouTube as a potential partner is due to how the platform drives viewers to TV, not just taking them away, Brandidi said.
“We ran a study in the US that asked respondents: how do you typically hear about new or returning TV shows? 58% of people cited YouTube as a source for TV discovery, and this number jumped to 76% for 18- to 24-year-olds. So it turns out, users come to YouTube to discover what to watch on TV.”
