Google Report Claims YouTube Beats TV When It Comes To Reaching Youth

A new study from Google in the UK has touted YouTube’s horn as bigger than TV when it comes to advertising.

The latest study was released yesterday, and combines data from online measurement firm comScore and UK TV ratings company BARB, and is giving free-to-air TV a run for its money when it comes to, well, its money.

This claim was based on “monthly averages” in the first quarter or 2016. The study claimed YouTube reaches more 18 to 34-year-old Brits on mobile alone than any commercial TV channel.

YouTube, in conjunction with research company YouGov, also survey 16 to 34-year-olds in the UK about their viewing habits, and if you’re in TV, the results don’t look good.

According to the online survey of 2000 people conducted in May, if forced to choose, 41 per cent of those surveyed would pick YouTube over TV, video subscription services, or streaming sites. A mere 27 per cent said they’d opt for TV.

On top of this, 58 per cent agree that they’re more likely to find content on things they’re loving right now on YouTube than – you guessed it – TV. Twenty-one per cent of respondents said they watch programs in traditional, old school ways, which translates to live on broadcast telly.

It follows another report from Google in April that claimed YouTube gives better ROI than TV ads.

The study is based on analysis the tech giant did across eight countries and shows that four out of five times YouTube ads were more effective than their TV counterparts at driving sales.

Last October, Google told advertisers they should be taking 24 per cent of their TV budgets and running over to YouTube with them if they ever want to reach younger audiences.

And while the latest report doesn’t necessarily prove that these audiences would ditch TV if it came down to it, according to a statement provided by Google for the purpose of the study, MediaCom’s managing partner in the UK Chris Binns is already convinced.

“Increasingly YouTube is the place that people go to follow their true passions,” he said, adding there is “no longer any real separation between what they watch on YouTube and what they watch on broadcast TV”.

“This research will make a lot of media agency planners sit up and take notice and adds useful, robust data to the debate about where brands looking to reach young people can best focus their spend.”

But television still holds on by a thread, and in March, research from Deloitte told us that not only is TV the preferred place to nab great entertainment, but is the best place for brands to advertise and subsequently reach their target audiences.

Meanwhile, the research also showed there are more than 190 YouTube channels from the UK with more than one million subscribers, up 50 per cent year-on-year.

“One thing that’s interesting is that people are getting that we had a lot of scale and reach and this further backs up this articulation that we are big, we matter to the video marketplace, and we are democratizing access to video,” Google EMEA director of brand solutions Debbie Weinstein told Business Insider.

“What’s premium in today’s world looks different to what it did in the past. One reason YouTube is growing so quickly is that all people can find what they need when they are looking for it.”

“I think TV is something that the brand community is very familiar with and something that they have been using for decades, so as a reference point for sight, sound, and motion, it’s the most obvious.

“We think YouTube is really the home of today’s video entertainment, sight, sound, and motion, and that native video experience.”

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