YouTube’s big bet on the NFL Sunday Ticket may be paying off, with YouTube TV becoming the fastest-growing Google product over the past year, according to internal growth metrics viewed by Insider.
YouTube TV grew 48% from October 2022 and October 2023, as shown by data from an internal Google system called Magic Eye that tracks the growth of company products and how they fare against rivals.
The television streaming service also saw the highest engagement of any Google product as well as the highest retention rate, according to the data. It said 52% of YouTube TV’s users were frequent, while only 8% of YouTube TV accounts had lapsed.
YouTube TV, which offers a selection of linear and on-demand programming, launched in 2017. Google and the NFL announced a deal in December to stream most Sunday Ticket games on YouTube. The Wall Street Journal reported that Google was paying about $2 billion a year for the package, which is available as an add-on for YouTube TV subscribers.
YouTube, as a whole, continues to be a revenue rocket ship for Google. The unit reported $7.95 billion in ad revenue in the last quarter, a 12.5% year-over-year increase. The president and chief investment officer of Alphabet, Ruth Porat, called out YouTube TV’s subscriber growth as a bright spot during the company’s Q3 earnings call.
A spokesperson did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.
TV and tablets are good for YouTube
Google’s internal data said television was the company’s fastest-growing form factor year-over-year. The company made clear it was capitalizing on that during its recent Brandcast event, where it announced a slew of new TV-focused offerings for advertisers, including 30-second unskippable ads when YouTube was watched on a TV.
Google’s ad sellers have also been pushing aggressively to get advertisers to allocate more of their TV spending to YouTube, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous so they could speak freely. Their identity is known to Insider.
In another interesting tidbit, Google discovered tablets were good for boosting YouTube watch time in an internal research study carried out by Google’s Magic Eye analysts in 2021.
“YouTube watch time increases substantially after tablet adoption, with YouTube watch time on form factors other than tablet decreasing only slightly,” read a summary of the findings.
It’s unclear if this report has directly impacted any of Google’s product decisions since, although an internal slide said the reports were designed to help Google leadership “understand the ecosystem better and understand product performance.”
Last year, Google announced it was getting back into the tablet business with the Pixel Tablet — a significant about-face after the company said it would stop trying to compete with Apple’s iPad.
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