YouTube is taking over TV viewers. The Oscars will soon be broadcast live on it too.
The online channel YouTube is increasingly replacing full-fledged television. The British BBC plans to produce its shows for the online platform. Starting in 2029, the Academy Awards ceremony should also be broadcast here. Television producers are trying to secure additional sources of income as more viewers move to streaming services. Will the internet one day completely replace television broadcasting?
The famous British public broadcaster BBC plans to prepare specially adapted content for YouTube, which will subsequently be available on its iPlayer and Sounds platforms. The station is largely funded through television license fees paid by households with a TV set, which allows its services, including content on iPlayer, to remain ad-free in the United Kingdom. However, it also wants to reach a younger audience, which would enable the station to generate additional advertising revenue by broadcasting these shows outside of Britain.
Both media are competing for similar viewers. At the end of last year, the YouTube portal in the United Kingdom had 51.9 million viewers. During the same period, the BBC was watched by 50.8 million people. This is stated by data from Barb Audiences, a company that measures television viewership and selected video portal viewership on TV sets.
Oscars Exclusively Only on YouTube
This is not the only change planned for the future on the YouTube channel. In just three years, the prestigious Oscar film awards ceremony is set to be broadcast here, as recently announced by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The ceremony will be available for free viewing. The live stream will offer closed captions and audio tracks in several languages, making it more accessible to a wider audience. Until now, the broadcast has been handled by the ABC network, owned by the Walt Disney Company.
Originally, Netflix was also interested in the Oscars. However, due to an offer to buy Warner Bros, they later backed out. The estimated price for the rights for ten years could reportedly be around 500 million dollars, which is more than 10 billion Czech crowns. This would be a similar amount that Disney recently paid for ten years of broadcasting the Grammy Awards. Until now, the TV station ABC has supposedly spent 120 million dollars annually for broadcasting the Oscars, which is just under 2.5 billion Czech crowns. This amount includes expenses for rights, ceremony production, and additional "institutional" support. According to experts, it was quite an expensive endeavor, especially considering the constant decline in viewership competing with online streaming. While in 1998 the viewership was a record 57 million, last year only 19.7 million viewers watched the ceremony.
YouTubers Conquer Cinemas
YouTube has even further reach. Thanks to personalities who regularly present themselves on the platform, it is possible to reach cinema audiences as well. This was recently achieved by game creator Mark Fischbach, who is known online under the pseudonym Markiplier. His directorial debut Iron Lung was the highest-grossing film in the United States at the beginning of February, earning more than 21 million dollars during its premiere weekend, which is approximately 430 million crowns. Originally, the author planned for screenings in 50 theaters. However, during the first weekend, the film ended up being shown in more than 4,100 theaters worldwide. It's no wonder, as this YouTuber has 38 million subscribers on the network.
Phenomenon with Billions of Users
YouTube is simply a phenomenon of the present. It represents the second most visited web service in the world with more than 2 billion logged-in users monthly. At the same time, it is the largest streaming service in the United States. Its viewership is growing worldwide. For example, broadcasts from the summer Olympics, which were held two years ago in Paris, garnered more than 12 billion views on YouTube TV. And what is also worth noting is the fact that it grows by an average of 500 hours of new videos every minute.
Therefore, it is not surprising that YouTube is the most used video platform in our country, visited monthly by over 8 million people. More than 80 percent of people connected to the internet use it. Over 3.7 million users also access YouTube through smart TVs.
It is also the most popular social network among Czech users, according to last year's survey by STEM/MARK agency for Ami Digital. 88 percent of us have longstanding experience with YouTube. Facebook and Instagram follow behind.
The average time we spend daily on such social networks is around 140 minutes. While the average time tends to decrease year-over-year for older generations, it increases for people under 44 years old. This presents a new opportunity for those who want to further expand the reach of their video content.
Sources: author article, ČTK, The Desk, Mediaguru.cz
