YouTube’s Victory in the TV Wars Depends on Parents
The platform dominates television screens more than any other streaming service, but it remains unsafe for kids to watch alone.
That's a bad recommendation.
Photographer: Chris McGrath/Getty Images EuropeHere’s a stat that might come as a shock to casual observers of the media ecosystem: The media company that commands the largest percentage of our eyeballs is not the mighty Netflix Inc., the Walt Disney Co. juggernaut or the omnipresent Amazon.com Inc. Prime. It’s YouTube. The platform represents 12.4% of audiences’ time spent watching television, according to Nielsen Holding Ltd.’s Media Distributor Gauge report for April. That beats Disney’s 10.7% (which includes not only the platforms and channels that bear its name but ESPN and Hulu to boot), nearly doubles the 6.8% and 6.7% for Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, respectively, and pummels the puny 3.5% share for Amazon.
But before we hail the platform as another nail in traditional TV’s coffin, it needs to accomplish something else: earn the trust of its users, particularly parents.