YouTube Viewing via Connected TVs Up 70 Percent This Year

During Google’s Q3 earnings call yesterday, CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that YouTube is experiencing more than 100 million hours of watch time via living room devices daily, which represents a 70 percent jump in the last year and about 10 percent of total YouTube watch time. Earlier this year, Google announced more than 1 billion hours of watch time for YouTube across all devices, but this is the first time that smart TVs and living room devices were specified. More than half of YouTube’s viewing now takes place on mobile devices. Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat noted that YouTube has an impressive 90 percent ad viewability rate.

“Altogether, YouTube has more than 1.5 billion users watching an average of 60 minutes of videos every day,” reports Variety. “Back in 2012, YouTube streamed just 100 million hours per day to all devices, period.”

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In regards to Pichai’s claim of 100 million hours of watch time “in the living room every day,” Recode explains that “a Google rep confirmed that he was talking about TVs connected to the Internet, either directly or via devices like Roku boxes or gaming consoles.”

While YouTube is a major revenue driver for Google, Porat added that content licensing for the platform is a significant factor in the company’s rising costs.

YouTube has been investing in original programming, and recently purchased the rights to sci-fi series “Origin” from Left Bank Pictures.

According to Pichai, notes Variety, the “major focus areas for YouTube going forward would be improving the community experience, driving further growth to the platform and growing its subscription businesses. Part of these efforts is also YouTube TV, the company’s internet-based TV subscription service that it launched earlier this year.”

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