YouTube is no longer a side platform. So why are media organisations still treating it like one?
For years, many media organisations treated YouTube as a useful extra: a place for clips, trailers and content that lived alongside their main platforms. It was useful for visibility, occasionally helpful for promotion and sometimes treated as an experiment, but rarely as a central part of a distribution strategy.
That perception is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
During Future Media Hubs' latest panel discussion, Evan Shapiro (ESHAP), Diane Glynn (Channel 4), Ronja Schneider (Media Lab Bayern) and creator Maddie Moate approached the topic from very different angles. Yet they kept returning to the same conclusion: YouTube follows its own rules. The way audiences discover content and engage with creators often works differently from the patterns broadcasters have traditionally been used to. For many organisations, that shift requires more than just adding another distribution channel. It requires rethinking long-held assumptions around the platform itself.
New audiences instead of lost audiences
Channel 4 faced a question that many media organisations continue to struggle with: with more and more viewers watching content on YouTube, how do we ensure that we keep our brand relevant for all audiences? Initially the organisation used YouTube mainly for clips and compilations, but in 2022 they started to experiment with uploading their full episode archive and the results were impressive. The audience grew quickly year on year: last year's watch time increased by 51%, while revenue grew by 93%. Rather than replacing existing audiences, YouTube introduced new ones. The audience profiles themselves also differed. Channel 4 observed changes in age groups, demographics and consumption patterns between viewers on YouTube and audiences on their own platforms. Instead of simply moving audiences from one place to another, the platform created additional touchpoints. The discussion challenged the assumption that audiences naturally migrate back toward traditional environments. Younger generations have grown up discovering and consuming content differently, often expecting content to exist where they already spend their time, rather than actively seeking it elsewhere.
The impact of that shift became visible in several examples. Around 82% of BBC's YouTube audience now comes from outside of the UK, showing how YouTube allows content to travel beyond traditional distribution markets and national boundaries. Maddie Moate’s own content, for example, can automatically be translated into dozens of languages without requiring additional production work. For broadcasters historically operating within defined territories, these developments open possibilities that would be harder to achieve through traditional distribution models alone.
The creator world and broadcaster world are starting to look alike
The discussion also challenged another assumption that has existed for years: creators and broadcasters operate in completely different worlds. For a long time, creator content was often associated with lower production quality, informal workflows and smaller teams. Television represented structure, scale and professional production standards. Today, those boundaries are becoming more difficult to define. Ronja Schneider pointed out that creators have become highly professional in their production processes, while still deliberately maintaining an authentic visual style. Certain creative choices that might once have been seen as imperfections, such as handheld camera movements, improvised setups or less polished aesthetics, are often intentional rather than accidental. Authenticity itself increasingly functions as a creative strategy.
At the same time, traditional media appears to be moving in the opposite direction. During the COVID period, television productions were forced to become lighter, faster and more flexible. Simpler setups became normal and creator-style production methods gradually entered mainstream workflows. Rather than two separate industries, both worlds increasingly influence each other. Evan Shapiro described it as a two-way movement: “YouTube's production norms are influencing television production norms, and television production norms are influencing YouTube.”
The result is not necessarily television becoming YouTube or creators becoming broadcasters. Instead, the distinction itself appears to be weakening.
Beyond views: understanding the creator business
Maddie Moate offered a practical example of what working across both worlds actually looks like. She initially started creating YouTube video's simply because she loved watching content on the platform. Later, while working as a presenter for science and technology companies and broadcasters, she realised that appearing on other channels was not necessarily helping her build her own audience. Eventually, BBC approached her for Maddie's Do You Know?, which shifted her work almost overnight towards children and family audiences.
One of the largest differences she described between YouTube and traditional broadcasting was creative ownership. On her own channel she remains involved from the earliest stages of production and influencing the editing process itself. Traditional television often placed her mainly in front of the camera.
But that flexibility comes with another reality: independent creators often become far more than presenters. They manage production, editing, publishing, community building, sponsorships and strategy. Growth also creates a difficult moment: eventually creators can no longer do everything themselves, bringing both financial risks and new responsibilities. The panel repeatedly returned to a misconception that creators somehow operate outside professional media. "There's this misperception amongst mainstream media that being a creator isn't a job," Evan Shapiro noted. “It's just a different form.” Diane Glynn also argued that YouTube monetisation should not be viewed through advertising revenue alone. “You build your audience, and then you can monetise the audience in different ways.”
Rethinking success on YouTube
A million viewers sounds impressive, but what happens if nobody returns? Traditional media has long measured success through familiar indicators: reach, subscribers and growth. The panel argued that behaviour matters more than raw audience size. Watch time, viewing duration, click-through rates and shares reveal much more about whether people actually care about the content. It's also how creators think about growth. Rather than trying to reach the largest possible audience, many focus on building smaller, but engaged communities around shared interests and recurring formats. Evan Shapiro repeatedly returned to three ideas during the discussion: “Passion. Fandom. Engagement.” Those three ideas also change how success is measured.
If the assumption is that YouTube equals short videos, the numbers of the session suggested otherwise. While short videos dominate much of the visible activity on the platform, viewing behaviour itself tells a different story. According to Evan, around 80% of viewing time on YouTube comes from content longer than thirty minutes, while approximately 70% of monetisation also comes from longer-form content.
Channel 4 observed similar patterns. Around 70% of their YouTube revenue comes from content over 20 minutes, rather than shorter clips, which reinforces the idea that audiences are increasingly treating YouTube as a viewing destination rather than simply a feed of short videos. The broader conclusion is that media organisations may need to rethink not only where they distribute content, but also how they define success.
Learning to stop overthinking
During the closing question, speakers were asked what media organisations should stop doing now and start doing tomorrow. Despite their different perspectives, the advice pointed in a similar direction: stop treating YouTube as a platform for young audiences only, stop overthinking and stop waiting for perfect strategies. Start experimenting, think in formats and series, rather than individual videos, and treat YouTube as a distribution platform in its own right. None of the speakers argued that broadcasters suddenly need to become YouTubers. The message was much simpler: learn by doing. Or as Evan Shapiro put it:
Audience behaviour has already changed. The question now is whether media organisations are willing to adapt alongside it.
