The BBC, which is partially funded by the British government, is reportedly in the early stages of developing a local competitor to American streaming services like Netlfix and Amazon Prime that has the working title ‘Britflix.’
The service would be created in collaboration with the BBC’s chief local competitor, ITV, and delivered via iPlayer, the BBC’s longstanding digital platform, according to The Telegraph, which was first to report the news. A similar collaboration between the BBC and ITV in 2009 was blocked by regulators for anti-competitive reasons.
“We’re moving into a different world where more and more content is going to be made available on demand,” culture secretary John Whittingdale said of the BBC’s plans. “Collaboration with other broadcasters and other production companies we think is important…There may come a moment in the future where all television is delivered online.”
In addition to archived BBC content, the broadcaster would also commission original series for the service. However, BBC has said that its existing content will remain as is and not live behind any forthcoming paywalls.
Last week, the British government unveiled a white paper outlining the future of the BBC for the next several decades that called for the organization to create “some form of additional subscription services,” The Telegraph reports.
Nevertheless, the so-called Britflix service may be slightly late to the streaming party. Netflix started offering streaming back in 2007, and launched in the UK in early 2012.
[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by OpenSlate. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]
Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.
It’s another installment of the weekly Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide and a now familiar channel is in the top spot.
Chart Toppers
Ryan ToysReview is in first place on the chart for the fourth week in a row. The family-friendly library of videos featuring Ryan and his opinion on toys and playtime has seemingly plateaued at a very impressive view count. The channel’s up 2% in views to top out at almost 155.9 million views on the week. In a not-so-close second place is T-Series. The YouTube home to the self-described top Indian music label amassed over 133.3 million views during the week.
Up next in the #3 spot is Webs & Tiaras – Toy Monster Compilations. The uncannily popular channel composed of videos showcasing adults in superhero costumes in everyday and superhero-y situations scored just about 126 million views in the week. Next up in fourth place is netd müzik. The music publishing arm of the Turkish conglomerate Doğan TV Holding ended the week with nearly 121.8 million views.
And rounding out the Top 5 is WWE. World Wrestling Entertainment’s home on YouTube dipped 5% in views to slam down more than 112.8 million of them in the week.
Top Gainers
The honor of one of our Top Gainers this week goes to The Late Late Show with James Corden.
The very late night CBS talk show currently helmed by English actor and comedian James Corden had a very good week on YouTube thanks to a star-studded installment of its Carpool Karaoke series. Gwen Steafin joined Corden on his morning drive to work and the pair picked up George Clooney and Julia Roberts along the way. The 14-minute episode quickly amassed an eight-figure view count and helped The Late Late Show‘s YouTube channel to a 187% week-over-week increase in views, more than 46.9 million views on the week, and the #48 spot on the worldwide chart.
All in all, the top 50 most viewed YouTube channels accounted for 3,443,136,114 views last week. Here’s the distribution of a few of those channels by multi-channel network:
Vevo: 9 channels in the Top 50, with Justin Bieber at #7.
Maker Studios: 4 channels in the Top 50, with TheDiamondMinecart at #10.
Studio71: 3 channels in the Top 50, with Webs & Tiaras – Toy Monster Compilations at #2.
BuzzFeed, XMediaDigital: 2 channels each in the Top 50, with BuzzFeed’s BuzzFeed Video at #14 and XMediaDigital’s mashamedvedtv at #9.
And here’s the distribution of the this week’s Top 50 YouTube channels by country of origin:
United States: 23 channels in the Top 50.
Canada, Great Britain: 5 channels each in the Top 50.
India: 4 channels in the Top 50.
Russia: 2 channels in the Top 50.
Argentina, El Salvador, Ireland, Netherlands, Philippines, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey: 1 channel each in the Top 50.
OpenSlate is a video content analytics platform that tracks more than 800,000 YouTube video channels and measures their ability to attract, engage and influence an audience. By providing one consistent measure of quality – the SlateScore™ – OpenSlate helps marketers, producers and agencies hone their online video marketing strategy.
[Editors Note: This article and all others in this column WILL contain SPOILERS. If you have not seen the latest episode of The Amazing Race season 28, it’s highly suggested you do so before you read the below. You have been warned and may Phil Keoghan have mercy on your soul. And for a reminder of the super cool and descriptive nicknames we have for the teams, check out the coverage of Episode 1. You can also find all of our The Amazing Race recaps right here.]
Welp, That Finale Happened…
I hate to have this start this way, but I just gotta be honest as someone who has been a fan of The Amazing Race since it’s first episode. This was probably one of the worst finales of the show ever. It’s a shame, because this season, which featured YouTube-and-social-media-start-studded teams was for the most part a very fun ride.
But let’s not jump too far ahead just yet and head back to the beginning of the end…
Teams are told they are heading to Los Angeles, CA to start their final leg of the race. And for the first time in Race history, teams get to fly Premium Class. Usually, teams have to travel coach and when they haven’t traveled coach, they’ve been penalized. I assumed the upgrade was some kind of product placement for a super cushy airline, but no, it appears Race producers decided to give teams a nice treat. Kind of a weird way to start off what is supposed to be the most challenging leg of the show, but okay.
In retrospect, I should have seen that as an omen of things to come…
#LeapofFaith
The first clue of the leg is at the Angelus Plaza in Downtown LA. Being a resident of LA and having spent plenty of time Downtown, I pretty much deduce right away that this challenge is going to have something to do with skyscrapers. #Torey must have deduced this as well, as Tyler and Korey start climbing up the building instead of looking for a clue box outside. This lets The Dancers and Team Family Time get ahead of them.
The clue is for the first RoadBlock of this leg, which is called #LeapofFaith and involves jumping from a height of 170 feet to grab another clue dangling in front of them. Sheri immediately agrees to do this one since it involves heights. The Dancers take a moment to strategize, as they know if there is a second RoadBlock this leg, whoever doesn’t do this one will have to do that. Matt decides he’ll go first. As those two teams head up to get rigged, #Torey finally finds the clue box and Tyler decides he’ll give it a shot. He also gets a nice surprise in his rigger, who is very handsome and named Brandon and is proclaimed almost immediately by Korey “Tyler’s Future Husband”.
Tyler after meeting his future husband.
Matt of The Dancers gets his clue on the first try. Sheri is…well, Sheri is freaking out. And I mean REALLY freaking out. She’s gotten emotional on the show before, but this was next level freaking out. Which leads to one of the most used edits on the show…what I like to call the “Cry To Commercial”.
#AmazingRace Drinking Game: Drink whenever a contestant saying “I don’t know if I can do this” leads to a commercial break
But in the end, Sheri pulls herself together to get it done. It takes her two tries, but she’s a trooper and doesn’t give up. It takes Tyler three tries to get his clue, furthering the gap between #Torey and the other two teams. Tyler also has to say goodbye to his Future Husband Hot Rigger Brandon. This is not looking good…
It’s A Museum
From here, teams take helicopter rides to Santa Barbara, CA and are told that when they arrive, they need to find Teresa Ann in the Santa Barbara Harbor. What teams have to figure out is that Teresa Ann is a boat and not a person and it’s docked somewhere near the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum.
The Dancers borrow a cell phone from their taxi driver and are able to look up details, so they have a good idea of what they’re doing before getting to the Harbor. Team Family Time is able to do some phone research as well, but for some reason, Sheri thinks the Teresa Ann is a museum. This gets them a bit off track before Cole finally corrects her. The Dancers finish this task first, but make the mistake of not having their first taxi wait for them and burn 20 minutes trying to track down another one. Surprisingly, Dana is keeping her cool and while she’s clearly frustrated, she’s not taking it out on Matt as she has in almost every other leg prior to this.
Dana and Matt. On a boat. Not arguing. #Goals
#Torey and Team Family Time pass each other in the harbor and it helps #Torey narrow down where the Teresa Ann is, but they still know they have a lot of time to make up. Both teams also let their cabs go and have to find new ones. Team Family Time gets in one first but the driver doesn’t know how to get to Gibraltor Rock, which is the location of their next clue. When they get out of the cab, #Torey end up getting in it shortly thereafter…something which proves to be a major problem for #Torey.
When Does the Action Happen?
From this point on, things just start to get…well…it gets pretty freakin’ boring actually. The next task teams need to complete is called Tyrolean Traverse. One member of the team pulls themselves on a wire out across a canyon to retrieve half of a clue. In the meantime, they are connected by rope to the other teammate, who has to scale down the side of a mountain to get the other half. They then both go back and meet each other to combine the two halves and have a whole clue.
I mean, this is the second to last challenge of the season and it’s just kind of boring. Yes, it looks pretty tough and I’m not knocking the athleticism that each of the teams had to have to get through it, but not even Dana, who traditionally gets pissed at everything, seemed to have too much trouble with this one. Hell, The Dancers have the whole task complete before any other teams get there. Sheri and Cole struggle with it a bit because AGAIN WITH THE HEIGHTS, but even they get it done relatively quickly. And #Torey basically FLY through it.
Pretty sure #TeamTylerAndKorey climbed a mountain/crossed a canyon in less time than it takes me to decide what to eat for dinner.
So at this point, The Dancers are so far ahead that this next bit ends up having no freakin’ use. Teams have to head to Grassini Family Vineyards to find their next clue, which is stuck in a bail of hay near the entrance. The Dancers cab blows right past it and drives them all the way into the Vineyard. The Dancers find the next challenge, but of course can’t start it because they don’t have their clue. This is all setting up the false hope that this mishap will lead to other teams catching up.
You probably already figured out by now that it didn’t matter.
The final challenge of the show (which is also a RoadBlock, so only one team member can complete it…so Dana is up on this one) is honestly way, way, way, WAY too easy and just generally kind of weird. It’s called Roll Out the Barrels and teams have to use barrel lids with letters on them to spell out nine cities the teams went to on the Race. But how did teams know which nine cities to do? Well, apparently, throughout the clues the whole season were hidden nine hashtags that correspond to each one.
Cole. Figuring it all out.
So wait, where were those nine hashtags all season long? I pay pretty close attention to things and try to figure out what the final challenge will be since they usually hide clues in previous episodes, but I don’t remember even getting any shots of clues with hashtags in them leading up to this. AND WHY NOT USE THOSE HASHTAGS IN THE EPISODES IF THEY WERE ALREADY PREPPED?
Regardless, Dana knows right away what the point of the challenge is and basically crushes it. Which is cool and all, but dang it, it made for one freakin’ anti-climatic ending where Matt and Dana basically could have crawled to the finish line. And just so you don’t think I am exaggerating, I’m not the only one who felt that way.
Terrible way to cap off a very good season. Awful finale, frustratingly easy final tasks, disappointing winners. Sigh. #AmazingRace
It’s all very frustrating. And it’s not Matt and Dana‘s fault. It’s the fault of Race editors and products. You can’t spend almost the entire season giving a team a Villains Edit to then try to switch the Villains the second to last episode (to Burnie and Ashley) and THEN try to give them a Heroes Edit at the very last minute. It was just super, super unsatisfying.
But all was not lost. Team Family Time comes in second, the highest position they’ve ever placed in a leg. And while #Torey came in third in the Race, to many fans of the show, they still came out on top.
All in all I enjoyed watching this season and there were tons of great moments, but the finale almost ruins the whole experience for me. I do hold out hope, however, that #Torey and/or Team Rooster Teeth can return in a future All Stars season…because dang were those two teams super fun to watch.
What did you think about the finale? Which teams do you hope come back in the future? Let me know in the comments below. And to everyone who followed this column through the season, my sincerest gratitude. #Blodie.
Mashable closed the 2016 NewFronts season by announcing a slate of original shows and providing some additional insight into its collaboration with Turner Broadcasting following the conglomerate’s multi-million dollar investment in the media upstart last March.
In addition to allocating 35 hours of content per month to Facebook Live, Mashable announced an untitled project from astronaut Garrett Reisman to “bring the awe of outer space to earth in whimsical ways”; the second season of Scamalot— in which comedian James Veitch responds to spam emails; and a sequel to the short film DARE, about a gay couple facing adulthood in the age of Tinder.
The company also said it would team with Telemundo on a tech review show for Facebook Live titled El Pulso Live, as well as with Bravo on four previously announced web series.
In terms of branded content, Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore said in a statement that the company’s partnership with Turner will “now offer our brand partners the opportunity to extend the reach of their multi-platform campaigns from digital all the way through to linear television.”
Mashable utilizes a so-called Velocity Technology Suite to ensure the success of both its editorial and branded content. The data and tools can predict, optimize, and measure engagement during every step of the production and publishing processes, it says. “At Mashable, we’ve built a mountain of data,” noted CTO Robyn Peterson, “and our creatives stand atop the peak, giving them an exponentially better visibility into what content will stand out in the crowded media landscape.”
At its first-ever NewFront event yesterday, WebMD announced 15 new video franchises and an expanded partnership with Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts to bring a weekly series to TV, as the company aims to be seen as far more than just a digital health database.
WebMD, which has partnered with Roberts on a digital series before, will team with her Rock’n Robin production company for Path to a Breakthrough, a new five-part series showcasing medical innovations. Additionally, WebMD and Rock’n Robin have created a weekly two-and-a-half minute TV segment titled WebMD Wellness Wednesday With Robin Roberts that they are currently shopping to local broadcast affiliates across the country. The show will explore different topics related to health, fitness, and beauty.
WebMD also works with another noted news anchor, Soledad O’Brien — who created a three-part series titled Teens & Stress for the site through her production company Starfish Media Group.
“WebMD has become part of the cultural landscape, and we are better positioned now than ever before to help connect consumers with the content that they want and need,” CEO David Schlanger said in a statement. The company says it is used as a resource by more than a third of the U.S. online population.
Other new shows include both short-form “explainers” and personality-driven features, the company said, including WebMD 1:01 and In Plain Sight, both of which provide health-related information in a way that WebMD says is humorous and easy to understand.
Finally, like many presenters at this year’s NewFronts, WebMD — which says it reaches more than 76 million unique visitors and 10 million millennial moms per month — unveiled a branded content studio called WebMD Studios to tap this coveted demographic.
In the wake of Amazon’s unveiling of a YouTube-like competitor called Amazon Video Direct, analyst Carlos Kirjner of research firm Alliance Bernstein sought to determine the Google-owned platform’s sweeping scale.
“One day, [YouTube] will be as large — if not larger — than most — if not all — legacy media companies, and it is playing a central role in the secular shift of brand advertising budgets to the Internet,” Kirjner writes, per this Barron’s blog post. “Yet, we know ridiculously little about YouTube.”
His findings are staggering. To date, Kirjner found that there are roughly 2 billion total videos on YouTube, which have been watched a total of 39 trillion times — totaling 196 trillion minutes (or 400 million years) spent. “It would take a team of 286 people their whole [lives] to watch all videos on YouTube,” writes Kirjner, who is an SVP and senior Internet analyst at Bernstein.
Despite its massive reach, however, viewership tends to be intensely concentrated. For instance, the top 1% of YouTube channels have accounted for 93% of all the platform’s views since its inception. This statistic would seem to indicate that YouTube is wise to be investing in its top creators, such as with marketing campaigns spotlighting popular channels and funding original content. At the same time, however, the platform is so sweeping that “YouTube’s scale protects Google and limits the value of any single content creator, channel or multi-channel network operator,” Kirjner says.
As for other rivals, like Facebook, Kirjner believes that YouTube will ultimately emerge as the world’s leading digital video platform. “User-generated content, cute as it may be, is unlikely to support pre-rolls for brand advertisers at scale,” he writes. “Even if we saw at-scale alternatives to YouTube emerge [within Facebook], it is probably the case that there is enough total user engagement and advertising dollars in TV land to support both,” he writes
Other analysts have predicted similarly stunning stats about YouTube in recent months. Eric Sheridan of global financial firm UBS, for instance, estimates that by 2020 the site will have generated $27.4 billion in revenues.
At an intimate NewFronts event last night, held within the home of Kin Community creator Christiane Lemieux, the lifestyle network announced its renewed commitment to the home space — including decor and DIY — as well as several forthcoming series from its roster of high-profile stars. A to Z Cooking, for instance, a series about food facts and cooking tips, will star Hannah Hart and premiere on her channel later this year.
“We believe home is where all the meaningful things in your life come together,” Kin’s co-founder and CEO Michael Wayne said in a statement. “Kin’s content, community of creators, and purpose are around helping people figure out how to make their way home.”
Kin, which comprises a network of just 150 creators and says its 650 million monthly views are 77% female, is set to streamline its own flagship YouTube channel, the company said. As opposed to showcasing a variety of creators, the channel will henceforth feature two recurring hosts: Claire Zinnecker will headline a home-themed show titled HomeWorks, while Naomi Robinson will charge the food vertical with Pretty Delicious.
And after signing best friends Jenn Im and Stephanie Villa, Kin has announced that the two will star together in a still-untitled travel show in coming months. Also returning to Kin is Lemieux’s home makeover show Overhaul, in which every design element showcased is also for sale and which will also be shot in 360-degree video. After remaking the home of Kin creator Rosanna Pansino last year, Im, RachhLoves, and Alexandrea Garza are up next.
Other series announced by Kin include: a sassy current events roundup show called The Daily Perk hosted by Jaime Primak Sullivan, and Dinner Exchange, in which creators who specialize in different types of food will swap recipes.
Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is noted for staying on top of the Internet’s most topical memes, as well as having her finger on the pulse of a surging community of digital influencers. So it seems only natural that DeGeneres would be tapped by the YouTube Kids app to curate some of her favorite clips.
Several of the clips come from DeGeneres’ own show, naturally, such as when five-year-old presidential expert Macey Hensley met President Obama (below), while others, including the ‘apparently’ kid and this spunky little dance recital star, have become viral standards.
DeGeneres, who inked a development deal with YouTuber Tyler Oakley and announced a full slate for her digital network last week, isn’t the only big name to have been recruited by YouTube Kids in recent days.
Last Friday, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street, launched a new YouTube channel called Sesame Studios, which will feature a roster of new digitally animated characters and shorts lasting between 30 seconds and five minutes. Its theme song was composed by YouTube star Todrick Hall. (Sesame Street’s original channel, featuring its beloved puppet characters and counting close to 2 million subscribers, will continue to exist.)
“You can create an unbelievable amount of content for YouTube for the cost of an hour of television,” Sesame Workshop president and CEO Jeffrey Dunn told NPR. “We believe that YouTube is going to be for this generation a lot like PBS is for prior generations. It is going to be where kids congregate and get access to media at some of their earlier stages.”
Creator Lilly Singh isn’t even a beauty guru, but the bold-faced vlogger — and star of the YouTube Red documentary A Trip To Unicorn Island — just inked her very first cosmetics deal.
In collaboration with the 20-year-old Smashbox beauty brand, Singh, who goes by the Superwomanmoniker on YouTube, is getting her very own lipstick shade fittingly dubbed Bawse. This is a term — slang for ‘boss’ — that Singh uses frequently in her vlogs, and encapsulates her own “indomitable, self-assured spirit,” according to Smashbox.
“At Smashbox Studios, we are always thinking outside of the box,” said founder and famed photographer Davis Factor in a statement. “When we started talking to Lilly Singh, about how she turns heads, reaches goals, and empowers her 8 million subscribers, we knew we had to collaborate.”
The limited edition deep red shade will be available in Smashbox’s Always On Matte Liquid Lipstick. Singh helped design the black and red packaging, which is covered in words like ‘resilient’, ‘bold’, ‘smile’, and ‘genuinely’. Priced at $24, Bawse is available at Smashbox.com and Sephora.com beginning today.
Singh teased that she was working with Smashbox on a secret project back in March. “I wanted to collaborate with Smashbox Cosmetics because they’re all about empowerment, about being your real authentic self, and that’s everything I stand for,” Singh said in a promo video (below).
Singh isn’t the first creator to launch a beauty product bearing her name. In 2013, Michelle Phan launched a makeup line called Eminspired by her fans, and, more recently, Carli Bybel launched a palette with BH Cosmetics.
Over the last decade on YouTube, creators and programmers have looked at various metrics to judge our online video successes and failures. And have sought out actionable insights that can help get more of the former than the latter. If you’ve been reasonably active on YouTube at all in the past 10 years, you know these metrics are always in flux. Figuring out what works and doesn’t work on YouTube – and the kinds of content the powers that be at YouTube want to work and not work on the platform – has been like trying to hit a rapidly moving target. It used to be that we could have our sights set on view counts and subscribers. Now it’s much more complex, subtle, and sophisticated.
That’s where Watch Time comes in.
YouTube representatives and personnel regularly cite “Watch Time” as an “important metric to promote videos on YouTube.” It’s so important to YouTube, in fact, that the Watch Time analytics section is given prime positioning on any given creators’ YouTube Analytics dashboard. It’s pushed the “Views” graph down on the analytics page. Take a look.
Watch Time is the new black.
And YouTube even removed “Views” entirely from the side menu, putting Watch Time in its place.
Respect. The. Watch Time.
This, of course, means Watch Time is what YouTube wants us (the creators and programmers) to focus on most. Or, more importantly, if we want to be as successful as possible on YouTube we had better make Watch Time our #1 priority. But what exactly is Watch Time?
Watch Time = Views x Average View Duration
If you go by the numbers in the Analytics section on YouTube’s dashboard, Watch Time is simply the total number of minutes people have watched your videos. Take your “Views” and multiply them by your “Average View Duration” and you’ll get your “Watch Time.” That actually makes the metric not that valuable to creators from a programming standpoint. It’s just the direct product of two other metrics. You can’t impact, change, or optimize for your “Watch Time” without impacting, changing, or optimizing for its components. The metric is cool to have, I guess, but it’s kind of meaningless. However, Average View Duration is not.
…the average household also watches several hours… per day on their TVs. So for YouTube to become the most important media in more people’s lives, we’ve got a lot of growing to do.
It’s evident that YouTube wants to compete with television for your time and attention (and therefore ad dollars). In order to do that, YouTube optimizes all of its promotional video algorithms (the videos that you see when on YouTube’s search pages, in the Suggested and Recommended videos sections on the site, etc.) to feature videos that keep people watching longer. This is why Average View Duration is extremely important and the results of the algorithm tweaks have been impressive. But don’t just take Meyerson’s and my word for it, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has touted the stat in the press, too, saying how overall Watch Time on the site has dramatically increased year over year.
Therefore, we as creators and programmers need to pursue “Watch Time” if we want to succeed on the platform. And that means optimizing for Views and Average View Duration. But there’s another caveat. When YouTube says “Watch Time” it doesn’t actually mean Minutes Watched (even though that’s what it says in analytics). There’s more to it than just Views and Average View Duration.
What YouTube really means by “Watch Time” is this: How often and for how long do your videos bring people to YouTube and keep them there? To figure that out we need to look at the four hidden metrics factored into “Watch Time.”
The Four Hidden “Watch Time” Metrics
There are four additional metrics beyond Views and Average View Duration that are factored into “Watch Time.” Check them out:
Session Starts is how many individual YouTube viewing sessions your videos start.
Session Duration is the total amount of time someone spends watching YouTube as a platform (Not just your videos and channel) and how that relates to your videos.
Session Ends are how many YouTube viewing sessions your videos end. (ie. When Viewers click off YouTube).
Upload Frequency is how often you’re uploading videos.
Disclaimer: Before I go further, I should state that while there is a lot of information about these metrics available online from both legit and shady YouTube SEO companies, I can find little in the way of official public comments or statements confirming or denying anything in regards to Session Time, Session Starts, Session Ends or Upload Frequency from YouTube itself.
However, in this guide from YouTube, on optimizing for Watch Time, it does state that:
“The algorithm for suggesting videos includes prioritizing videos that lead to a longer overall viewing session…”
The line is vague and doesn’t really stipulate the four individual metrics precisely. There is also this line from the YouTube Creator Playbook V3:
“YouTube optimizes search and discovery for videos that increase watch-time on the site…”
So, there’s really not a lot out there publicly or officially from YouTube to back up the importance of these metrics. It’s odd, because you’d think that YouTube wouldn’t be so secretive about its algorithm ranking factors, especially when it tries to tell people how to do well on their own site. There is zero data available in the Analytics Dashboard specifically designed to help creators and programmers determine what these metrics are (with the exception of upload frequency).
But I can say from personal experiences in public panels and presentations that I have repeatedly heard these four metrics (or variations of them) and their significant importance talked about by YouTube personnel. All that that said, I believe data from Channel Frederator backs up these metrics as being integral to the “Watch Time” and other algorithm equations. So, what is outlined below is how we at Frederator try to gain insight into these metrics, what impacts them, and how to optimize around them.
Also, please note all of these data points help paint a picture, but it’s not the whole picture. As with a lot of things about YouTube, there are undoubtedly hundreds, if not thousands of factors in play.
Session Starts
This graph below shows views of our channel’s subscribers vs. the views of those who aren’t subscribed.
Views: Subscribers vs. Non Subscribers
This was the first graph that gave us reason to investigate how views from subscribers impacted overall views and individual video performance. What we found was that subscription views in the first 24 – 48 hours of a video’s release seem to a be a key factor for the session starts metric. It may not be a direct factor, but we believe it impacts it.
A great example of this is a video we released on Channel Frederator, “7 Cartoon Facts That Will Ruin Your Childhood.” In its first two days it generated 58.46% of its viewership from subscribers, getting 94,000 views from subs. This is roughly equivalent to 10% of our total subscribers (987,000 subs) at the time of its release. That views-to-subscribers percentage is very high for Channel Frederator:
Views in first two days of “7 Cartoon Facts That Will Ruin Your Childhood”
In our view, the numbers indicate this is a really strong video that brings people to YouTube and starts viewing sessions. The traffic sources for the video also reinforce this reasoning, as a large amount of the traffic sources are the YouTube homepage (e.g. the Browse and Suggest sections on the homepage, the Subscriptions tab, etc.) and our own channel:
Traffic sources for “7 Cartoon Facts That Will Ruin Your Childhood”
This early success in the first two days is likely one of the biggest contributing factors (along with Views and Average View Duration) to the success the video had over the next several days:
Views for the next several days of “7 Cartoon Facts That Will Ruin Your Childhood”
The traffic sources for these days are:
Traffic sources for the next several days of “7 Cartoon Facts That Will Ruin Your Childhood”
97% of the traffic over the ensuing days came from Browse and Suggested. Placement in those areas is basically 100% dependent on YouTube’s algorithm.
We investigated a number of our other videos at Frederator and found videos we considered high-performing videos typically generated between 45% and 65% of their first-day viewership from subscribers. They also generated views from subscribers equivalent to 5% or higher of our current subscriber count. Videos that performed outside this range were typically not high performers (with some outliers as exceptions).
Another way people have looked at this Session Starts metric is referred to as “View Velocity.” View Velocity is basically the concept that if a video gets a lot of views quickly after upload, YouTube looks at this as a significant indicator of a video’s immediate relevancy to a large swath of people. This is oftentimes seen when a video gets a lot of shares, embeds, or purchased views. This same concept can be applied to one’s own audience, too, which I believe all the data above supports. (And as you’ll see below, we’ve found the inverse to be true, too.)
One final note on Sessions Starts. This metric is also impacted by viewers who click on your video first in their YouTube session, either by going to directly to your channel or clicking on the video in their homepage feeds. This becomes extremely important, especially when it pertains to poor-performing videos. Our data for Channel Frederator indicates that if we upload a video and a small percentage of our viewers click to watch, YouTube will not only reduce how much they feature that video, they will also reduce how much they feature our other videos, by as much as 50%.
Our research gives us reason to believe that Session Starts is a significant factor in the YouTube promotional algorithms. Subscription viewership is obviously not the only source of Session Starts, but in lieu of having any sort of exact Session Starts metric in our YouTube Analytics, it can give you a meaningful view into how your content is performing according to the algorithms. .
Session Duration
The next big hidden metric we try to optimize for at Channel Frederator is Session Duration.
We try to piece this together by looking at our Views Per Unique Viewer. This metric actually doesn’t exist in YouTube Analytics, but you can get to it by dividing your Views by Unique Viewers. (However, this number doesn’t take into account Unique Viewers from the YouTube app and other non-browser viewership, as YouTube only accounts for “web only” Unique Viewers.) This is the graph of Channel Frederator’s 28-Day Rolling Average Views Per Unique Viewer since Jan 1st 2015:
Channel Frederator’s 28-Day Rolling Average Views Per Unique Viewer since January 1, 2015
While that stat looks to be tanking, our Average View Duration has increased and stayed consistently high:
Channel Frederator’s 28-Day Rolling Average View Duration since January 1, 2015
This means that our individual channel Session Duration has increased as well. We just take the Average View Duration and multiply it by Views Per Unique Viewer.
Channel Frederator’s 28-Day Session Duration since January 1, 2015
(Note that Session Duration here is a representative metric. It doesn’t tell us if all of those views happened successively or if they occurred over the course of the entire day. It’s also based on the aforementioned faulty Unique Viewers number. If you attempt to figure out your own Session Duration, just keep in mind that it’s kind of muddy.)
But now let’s compare these graphs to our Rolling 28 Day Viewership graph. Here’s where we start to see a bit more rhyme and reason to how all these metrics actually play out:
Channel Frederator’s 28-Day Session Duration vs, Views since January 1, 2015
As you can see there is some clear correspondence between Session Duration and Viewership. It’s still not a perfect match, however, and it doesn’t factor in Session Starts. But what the Session Duration metric does is help show us how long on average people are watching our videos on a given day. It also gives us a benchmark against which we can try to improve. There’s still no way to see how our Frederator videos impact Session Time across the entire YouTube site, so the best we can really do for this metric is try to drive up Average View Duration and Views Per Unique Viewer on our own content.
Session Ends
When we talk about Session Ends, we’re referring to videos that drive people off of the YouTube platform. There’s little to no data at all available around figuring out how this metric might look in Analytics. It’s unfortunate that this data doesn’t exist, as it would make programming choices on YouTube far easier.
For example, Channel Frederator has a merchandise store partner StashRiot (which is also owned by Frederator Networks). We want to promote this store and our merch heavily to generate additional revenue and revenue for channels in the Channel Frederator Network who have their own stores, so that our fans can show their love and support (and the channels can add to their bottom lines). However, we have no way of knowing how much promotion is too much from an algorithmic standpoint and have no idea what impact this promotion will have on our channel and videos.
The data I do have around this is very superficial. This is a graph of Channel Frederator’s Viewership and what we were focused on from a messaging and marketing perspective in the majority of our videos at various points over the last 365 days:
Channel Frederator 28-Day Rolling Views vs. Promo
This timeline shows that as we shifted focus to driving people off of the YouTube platform our viewership dropped until we realigned our focus to keeping people on the YouTube platform. We don’t know if this had a direct or meaningful impact on Viewership, but the timing does match up.
One metric that does give some actual data around Session Ends is if you use annotations that link off the YouTube platform or a link shortener like Bitly for links in your description. This can at least help give a little insight into videos that are driving people off of YouTube.
Upload Frequency
There’s another item that impacts “Watch Time.” It’s a channel’s Upload Frequency.
Again, there’s not a lot publicly available directly from YouTube about this metric, but I can point to personal experience sitting in panels and presentations in hearing the importance of this metric spoken of many times. I was also able to unearth this from version 1.5 of the YouTube Creator Playbook: “More content will lead to more viewership and better ranking in algorithms.”
“Publishing regularly also provides more opportunities for your videos to surface in YouTube’s automated recommended and related video sections.”
On one hand, that’s a ‘no duh’ type of statement. More videos inherently means more opportunities to be featured. On the other hand, this speaks directly to YouTube’s stated mission of increasing Watch Time. The more an individual channel uploads, the more likely viewers are to come back again and again to see the new videos. In one YouTube panel I attended, we were shown a graph showing that the more times a viewer comes to YouTube in a given week, the more videos they watch in each individual session. Therefore, the reasoning goes, it’s within YouTube’s interest to feature and promote videos from channels that are capable of producing a large amount of content. If you need evidence for this look no further than every popular gaming channel that’s uploading multiple times per day.
It’s important to note how Upload Frequency interplays with the Session metrics. If a channel is uploading frequently that channel could be bringing people back to the platform often (Session Starts), giving them lots of content to watch (Session Duration), which keeps them from exiting the platform (Session Ends). However, if a channel is uploading frequently and people are NOT watching their videos, people do not spend a long time watching their videos, or the video causes people to leave the YouTube platform, this will be a “ding” against that channel’s performance for the Session metrics.
On Channel Frederator, we’ve seen this ourselves. This is the rolling 28-day totals for Channel Frederator over the last year comparing Viewership to Number of Uploads:
Channel Federator 28-Day Rolling Views vs. Videos Published
You can see as our Frederator uploads increased through April, May, June, and July of 2015, so did our viewership. Slowly, our average uploads dipped, and viewership followed. Then, beginning in late October we began uploading a lot of promotional videos, which received far less viewership in the first few days because our audience wasn’t clicking on them nearly as frequently. That speaks to a decrease in Session Starts, potentially a decrease in Session Duration, and an increase in Session Ends. In late December we cut these types of videos out and returned to mostly long form (7+ minutes) original videos while we slowly scaled our volume of uploads back up. As we’ve approached 30 uploads in a 28-day period, our viewership is rising again to our highest levels ever.
Conclusion
When YouTube and YouTubers use the term “Watch Time,” what they’re all talking about is a combination of many factors. The key metrics being Views, Average View Duration, Session Starts, Session Duration, Session Ends, and Upload Frequency. Since “Watch Time” is the primary metric the YouTube algorithms take into account, it’s essential that if you want to find success on the YouTube platform you optimize your programming strategy for the real meaning of “Watch Time.”
Matt Gielen is the VP of Programming and Audience Development for Frederator Networks. Matt oversees the teams building the largest animation network in the world, The Channel Frederator Network. He also leads the teams producing and programming Frederator Networks’ owned and operated channels on YouTube, Channel Frederator, The Leaderboard, and Cinematica. You can follow Matt on twitter @mattgielen. He’s also going to be giving some advanced seminars at Vidcon 2016 on both the Industry and Creator track with more insights and data based on this article.
Filed under: Articles, Channel Frederator, News, YouTube by Matt Gielen Comments Off on WTF Is Watch Time?! Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The YouTube Algorithm
Welcome to YouTube Millionaires, where we profile channels that have recently crossed the one million subscriber mark. There are channels crossing this threshold every week, and each has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments of YouTube Millionaires here.
This installment of YouTube Millionaires is brought to you by Epoxy.
YouTube’s community of female beauty vloggers is large and well-established, but at the same time, there is a smaller group of men who want to show off their looks, too. One of those “boy beauty” creators is Manny Mua, who has gathered a large audience by offering makeup tutorials to his viewers, sharing a few of his favorite cosmetic items, and exuding confidence all the way. In order to help Manny celebrate his recent million-subscriber milestone, we asked him a few questions about his digital success:
Tubefilter: How does it feel to have one million subscribers? What do you have to say to your fans?
Manny Mua: I feel amazing! It’s such a huge milestone that I am SO proud of! It makes me want to continue with what I’m doing and keep striving to be the best I can be.
TF: You’ve ascended very quickly since launching your YouTube channel. What do you has made you so popular with the YouTube audience?
MM: I think I grew quickly because there weren’t very many boys doing what I was doing at the time, and I think in order to grow on YouTube you have to be different and be yourself and I think I was doing pretty darn well at those 2 things 🙂
TF: What most excites you about being one of the most prominent male beauty vloggers on the Internet?
MM: What most excited me is being able to see younger kids, LGBT or not, being inspired by what I’m doing to be able to pursue whatever they want in life. It’s such an amazing feeling that is hard to describe.
TF: On the other hand, what would you say is the biggest struggle you have to deal with?
MM: The biggest struggle I would say is “turning it off.” There is no off switch with social media, you never get a break. It’s not a normal career that’s 9-5, this is full time 24/7 and that can be very difficult at times.
TF: Do you feel you have any obligation to educate your viewers about gender politics, or do you merely aim to entertain?
MM: Honestly I aim to entertain as well as educate. They go hand in hand for me. I want people to know that it’s okay to be a boy and wear makeup or do whatever they want. They don’t have to follow the “normal” rules of society. But I can also be funny and entertaining as well. I hope.
MM: Actually the idea came up cause I had SO many products from the same brand I thought, I wonder if I could do a full face with this brand. Once I realized I could I was like, HEY! I can do a couple of these, and show love to some different brands and products I wasn’t using as often.
MM: You’ll just have to subscribe to my channel and find out what’s next 😉 Good things! I promise you!
This installment of YouTube Millionaires is brought to you by Epoxy.
This installment of YouTube Millionaires is brought to you by Epoxy, the premier company that helps multi-platform creators and digital networks distribute videos, engage with fans, measure success, and grow their communities across the social web. Check out Epoxy’s new Sharing Studio, a place for quickly creating and distributing native social content from your YouTube channels.
YouTube and the National Football League (NFL) have expanded their partnership, the companies announced today, to bring 96 so-called “historic” football games in full to the video platform, as well as to make highlights from games this season available as they are in progress.
The new multi-year deal will build upon the NFL’s YouTube channel, which launched last year and has already garnered 900 million views. While the channel currently carries previews of games, highlights, and recaps — as well as news and fantasy football advice — the expanded partnership marks the first time that the NFL will post games in full. Three of the most memorable games from each of the NFL’s 32 total teams will arrive on the channel before the 2016 season starts in September, the company said in a press release.
And in addition to highlights posted while games are in progress, Google will display NFL videos in a “distinct box” at the top of search results, the company said, as well as similarly display kickoff times and broadcast information for every NFL game.
“YouTube has always been the home for sports highlights on the Internet, and we look forward to giving football fans around the globe access to even more of the content they love,” said Jonathan Zepp, YouTube’s head of North America direct content partnerships, in a statement.
“This expansion of our partnership will make it easier than ever for the millions of highly engaged avid and casual fans on YouTube and Google to discover and access an even greater variety of some of the most valuable content in the sports and entertainment business,” added Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s SVP of media strategy, business development, and sales.
As YouTube’s deal with the NFL expands, the league announced last month that Twitterhad won a contentious bidding war to live stream Thursday Night Football games this season for free and without authentication to its 800 million registered and non-registered users.
