What Does TV Mean in 2022?

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For this week’s episode of Amobee Out Loud, my co-host Val Bischak and I sit down in-person with Marc Weinhouse, Global Director of YouTube Ads Marketing, to talk about the state of television today – the ever-evolving viewership experience, its cultural influence, and how advertising fits into the overall landscape of video.

Will CTV Find the Right Ratio of Ads + Content?

As we’ve discussed in previous episodes, linear TV publishers corrupted the viewing experience with too many ads per hour of content and ultimately that drove consumers to embrace streaming as an alternative viewing method. We ask Marc: with CTV now mainstream, how are platforms like YouTube thinking about ad loads? An excellent viewing experience is paramount to the platform’s success, he says, so keeping the advertising-to-programming ratio lower and making the ads highly relevant to the viewers is crucial and is better for the health of the platform and its creators.

With Netflix set to introduce an ad-supported tier, it remains to be seen how much marketers will be willing to pay for those short but highly targetable ad slots, and whether they’ll get more comfortable experimenting with higher premiums to reach their audiences.

YouTube’s First Year at Upfront Week

Advertisers’ may be grumbling about digital premiums, but their hesitancy to invest in CTV is shifting as the industry matures, and there’s no better example than this year’s upfront, where YouTube presented for the first time. YouTube is the most popular OTT platform in the US, with 150 million adults streaming it. (UScreen) So despite some initial skepticism about YouTube’s presence at the upfront prior to the annual gathering, in the end it was received positively and bodes well for YouTube and the future of ad-supported CTV.

Defining Premium Content in Fragmented TV Ecosystem

The emergence of digital video has changed the dynamics of ‘premium content,’ and throughout the episode we challenge Marc to define premium content in this evolving marketplace. According to Marc, user-generated content, which makes up a huge portion of YouTube’s library, qualifies. YouTube’s consumers are viewing user-generated content on a scale unmatched by SVODs. Mr. Beast, one of YouTube’s top creators, boasts nearly 100 million subscribers to his channel alone. YouTube creators have to approach their content production as professionals in order to reach that scale, and that means that the definition of “professional production” is evolving too, Marc points out. Mr. Beast’s recreation of Netflix’s hit show “Squid Game,” which has over 275 million views and cost a few million dollars to produce, is also an example of how platforms like YouTube are influencing culture. Maybe that’s the new pinnacle of premium content in a digital era: when data-rich impressions and attentive viewership propel cultural virality.

You can watch or listen to the full discussion with Marc here. If you enjoy the recaps and full episodes, please leave us a review. As always, we’re eager to continue the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. We’ll be back next week with another great episode.