Mitch @mitchellnorris - Twitter Profile

about 23 hours ago

YouTube is rolling out a crazy new update this year. YouTube is rolling out Shows, and it changes how your content sits on your channel. Here is what it does and why the channels that ignore it lose a year of watch timeL A playlist groups a batch of videos together with no structure. A viewer who wanted to follow your series in order had to search through the list themselves. YouTube admits this was cumbersome. Shows fix it. You convert a playlist into a show, your videos become numbered episodes inside seasons, and YouTube builds a full show page with the artwork you upload. Then it recommends that show across the app. This was built for the TV, not your phone. TV is the fastest growing place people watch YouTube, and the old channel layout never matched how people watch on a TV. For many people, especially young viewers, YouTube already is TV. The connected TV experience never reflected that. Revenue from TV viewing jumped 30 percent in one year. Shows copy the layout people already know from Netflix and Prime. Finish one episode and the next plays automatically. The Continue watching row holds their place. That is how one viewer becomes a full season of watch time instead of a single view. YouTube copied this from the streaming services on its own platform. The show pages you are about to get are the same ones YouTube built for Paramount+ and Showtime. YouTube built these show pages for PrimeTime Channels, its paid streaming bundle inside the app. Their product lead said they realized they should bring the same product to channels, because so many channels already make high quality shows. So you get the same page a paid streaming service gets, for free, on your own channel. YouTube is not making the shows. You are. YouTube shut down its own studio and handed the entire opportunity to channels. YouTube Originals launched in 2015, greenlit Cobra Kai in 2018, lost the show to Netflix in 2020, and shut down in 2022. YouTube now says it has no plans to restart it. Their words: their expertise is helping others create and distribute, not making the media themselves. That is the whole point. YouTube will not compete with you for the slot. It will promote you into it. The placement is open to channels now. Set this up now or hand the placement to someone else The channels that build shows this year get the recommended placement. The rest stay a list of separate videos nobody finishes. Pick serial when people watch your story in order. Pick non-serial when people drop into a topic anywhere. Upload real artwork, the texted poster, the backdrop, and the title treatment, because YouTube puts that art on browse pages across the app. Number your seasons. Design thumbnails that read on a 55 inch screen, not just a phone. Do this before your competitors do, because the early shows get the recommendations.

natecurtiss_yt's tweet photo. YouTube is rolling out a crazy new update this year.

YouTube is rolling out Shows, and it changes how your content sits on your channel.

Here is what it does and why the channels that ignore it lose a year of watch timeL

A playlist groups a batch of videos together with no structure. A viewer who wanted to follow your series in order had to search through the list themselves. YouTube admits this was cumbersome.

Shows fix it. You convert a playlist into a show, your videos become numbered episodes inside seasons, and YouTube builds a full show page with the artwork you upload. Then it recommends that show across the app.

This was built for the TV, not your phone.
TV is the fastest growing place people watch YouTube, and the old channel layout never matched how people watch on a TV.

For many people, especially young viewers, YouTube already is TV. The connected TV experience never reflected that. Revenue from TV viewing jumped 30 percent in one year. Shows copy the layout people already know from Netflix and Prime. Finish one episode and the next plays automatically.

The Continue watching row holds their place. That is how one viewer becomes a full season of watch time instead of a single view.

YouTube copied this from the streaming services on its own platform.

The show pages you are about to get are the same ones YouTube built for Paramount+ and Showtime.

YouTube built these show pages for PrimeTime Channels, its paid streaming bundle inside the app.

Their product lead said they realized they should bring the same product to channels, because so many channels already make high quality shows. So you get the same page a paid streaming service gets, for free, on your own channel.

YouTube is not making the shows. You are.
YouTube shut down its own studio and handed the entire opportunity to channels.

YouTube Originals launched in 2015, greenlit Cobra Kai in 2018, lost the show to Netflix in 2020, and shut down in 2022. YouTube now says it has no plans to restart it.

Their words: their expertise is helping others create and distribute, not making the media themselves. That is the whole point. YouTube will not compete with you for the slot. It will promote you into it. The placement is open to channels now.

Set this up now or hand the placement to someone else
The channels that build shows this year get the recommended placement. The rest stay a list of separate videos nobody finishes.

Pick serial when people watch your story in order. Pick non-serial when people drop into a topic anywhere.

Upload real artwork, the texted poster, the backdrop, and the title treatment, because YouTube puts that art on browse pages across the app. Number your seasons.

Design thumbnails that read on a 55 inch screen, not just a phone. Do this before your competitors do, because the early shows get the recommendations.

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Mitch

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