YouTube, the video platform owned by Google, is becoming increasingly powerful compared to television, including in France.
A statistic that somewhat alarmed TV network executives this summer and was reiterated this week at the Mipcom in Cannes: Americans now spend significantly more time watching streaming platforms than traditional television—2 hours and 6 minutes per day for the video giants versus 1 hour and 48 minutes for TV (ABC, NBC, or CBS), according to Glance. And when we talk about video streaming giants, we often think of Netflix, but in reality, that platform is only in second place. YouTube is the leader, and by a wide margin, accounting for 13% of viewing time, with its consumption doubling in three years.
A Multitude of Video Formats
This can be explained by two phenomena. The first is the rise of short videos, Shorts. These formats, designed to compete with TikTok, use recommendation algorithms that capture attention and are highly addictive. They significantly increase viewing time on YouTube. The second phenomenon is the development of longer formats by content creators. In France, examples include Inoxtag,