Thinkbox's Lindsey Clay says that the emotional connection people enjoy with TV makes the so-called battle between TV and YouTube a false one
Here's a fact: in the UK, for every minute spent with YouTube, the average person spends nearly an hour watching terrestrial TV. To put it another way: if terrestrial TV was a human being of average height, YouTube would be about the length of the world's smallest mammal, the Etruscan shrew.
I say this not to denigrate YouTube or Etruscan shrews; I genuinely think both are incredible. I say it to try and add some perspective to a debate about YouTube and TV that is getting out of hand, fuelled by unsubstantiated claims and misunderstanding.
Here's another fact: in all the major studies into how and why advertising works, TV advertising emerges time and again as the most effective form, pound for pound – whether that is in terms of return on investment or profit generated. You can see a roundup of effectiveness studies here.
The reason for giving these facts is a recent article by Adam Penny posted here entitled Why the Battle between YouTube and TV matters to Brands. He made a number of unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims and gave no facts to back them up – because there are no facts to back them up. I'm grateful to the Guardian for offering a right of reply.
TV and YouTube are friends
Penny claimed that YouTube had "steamrollered" TV and that TV was "down for the count. These are incredible claims. To put them in perspective, here's an infographic based on official joint industry figures from Barb (which measures TV viewing) and Ukom (which measures internet use). It compares the total proportion of the UK population that is reached and the time they spend watching terrestrial TV, using the internet as a whole (which includes watching TV online), and using some of the key internet-based media that receive the most attention in the media, including YouTube.
This infographic doesn't include mobile use because that isn't measured yet, but if added in, it would increase time spent with the online numbers by less than 10%. But, as you can see, YouTube is a long way from steamrollering linear TV. In fact, linear TV viewing has reached and maintained a record high at exactly the time that YouTube and other online video platforms have blossomed.
But this misses the point. To set it up as a "battle" between TV and YouTube is wrong in the first place. Not because linear TV is so much bigger, but because TV enjoys an enormously complementary relationship with YouTube. TV is all over YouTube, either as clips or archive series.
So YouTube is one of the many ways to deliver TV content; they co-exist quite happily. But the positive relationship doesn't end there. By playing host to so much TV, YouTube is effectively TV's PR department, sparking interest and whetting appetites for more (plenty of new people started watching Britain's Got Talent the next week after they saw a clip of Susan Boyle on YouTube).
And YouTube is also TV's audition room: be talented, go viral, get into the news and you might make it into the professional world of TV and the greater legitimacy, fame and opportunity that secures. This is rare, but it does happen.
What is TV and why do we watch it?
Despite the facts, Penny is not alone in making wild claims about YouTube. Google's algorithm-in-chief Eric Schmidt recently claimed YouTube had overtaken TV, although he has more of a vested interest and knows a good headline. Some others – generally drawn from the internet industry, it must be said – assume that it is only a matter of time.
But why is this? At the heart of it is a misunderstanding of what TV is and the reasons why people watch it.
TV is a type of content (in both senses of the word); the TV set is by far the preferred device on which we watch it – 98% of TV in the UK is watched on the TV set and 90% of that is watched live. But you can now watch TV on tablets, laptops and smartphones, and most of this is watched on-demand.
In a world where video content proliferates, it is increasingly important to delineate between different sorts of video. All TV is video, but not all video is TV. TV – whether watched live or on-demand – is at the high quality/high investment end of the spectrum.
Penny's article suggests he thinks live, scheduled TV is a bit of a tyranny. He thinks people need not be slaves to the TV schedule; that they can liberate themselves by watching what they want when they want on-demand (and on YouTube). They certainly can, but this doesn't mean they don't also want to watch live. He is missing the emotional point.
The fact is that people are social beings; they like sharing experiences and doing things together. Very few things bring us together like live TV – add social media to it, as many now do, and you're not just watching with whoever else is on the sofa, you're sitting on a virtual sofa with the world potentially.
Thinkbox's recent research study – Screen Life: TV in demand – examined the reasons why people watch live TV or on demand. It found that we watch TV content to meet a range of emotional needs, some of which watching on demand or the social videos that make up the bulk of YouTube can't easily satisfy, but all of which scheduled TV does satisfy.
The study identified six core emotional reasons why we watch TV: for comfort, to unwind, to connect, to experience, to escape, and to indulge. On demand is particularly good at more personal needs like indulging and escaping, but it comes up short for more passive, relaxed and social needs like unwinding and seeking comfort. And if you want to connect, to feel like you are sharing a TV experience with the rest of us, then watching live is by far the best way for obvious reasons.
Penny's article also makes much of the fact that YouTube decided to invest in original content, seeing it – unsurprisingly – as "a shift in the dominance of broadcasters dictating what an audience should want to watch and how". However, since his article was posted, YouTube has quietly pulled the plug on its investment – perhaps because it has noticed a shift isn't happening. But then, YouTube's global one-off investment of $100m in content was never going to change the world. In the UK alone, broadcasters invest 15 times as much in TV content – every year.
I'm not saying that YouTube is not going to grow – it will. Or that it isn't fantastic – it is . But the assumption that YouTube will inevitably cannibalise or kill linear TV time is flawed. They do different things and they are enjoyed for different reasons.
Lindsey Clay is managing director at Thinkbox.
Get more articles like this sent direct to your inbox by signing up for free membership to the Guardian Media Network – brought to you by Guardian Professional.
Connected TV
guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds