Chloe Burrows, star of hit reality show YouTube Inside
Before the launch of series 11 of Love Island last Monday ITV with proudly declared she was ready to «light up the country's screens with another hot summer» as Maya Jama and 13 singles headed to Mallorca. «The hit show continues to shine brightly,» exclaimed the presenter.
However, yesterday a brand new reality show launched, pushing Love Island into the shadows — and that should be very worrying for ITV and its ilk.
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If you haven't yet watched Inside, the YouTube hit created by the Sidemen collective that every teenager you know has. Combining elements of Big Brother, Love Island and Jasper Carrott's much-overlooked game show Golden Balls, Inside became an instant sensation. Ten influencers, such as TikTok stars and former Made in Chelsea cast members, were locked in a warehouse near London Bridge for a week, competing in competitions for a prize fund of up to £1 million.
Since its launch, the first episode of the new Love Island series has been watched by 3 million people; Inside debuted nearly 12 million times last night. The figures are not directly comparable: ITV's figures are an average of the entire program watched by UK viewers; Views on YouTube are global and take a couple of minutes to count, but they will make both traditional broadcasters and streaming services wary. YouTube has quietly become the world's largest TV channel without anyone seemingly noticing. In another contrast, Netflix's runaway hit «Baby Reindeer» racked up nearly 60 million views in its first month. Inside is likely to surpass that number this week.
The size of YouTube, which was acquired by Google in 2006, is often overlooked. Its users, be they professionals, semi-pros or amateurs, download around 500 hours of content every minute. As smart TVs continue to be adopted, YouTube is being watched much more and is the most watched platform on devices, ahead of even Netflix.
Almost everyone in the UK uses YouTube, with more than 90 per cent of people in every age group using it, according to consultancy Enders Analysis. Every other major website, from the BBC to TikTok, is either aging or younger. The average British YouTube user spends around 20 hours a month on the site, and it is estimated that they earn almost the same £2 billion as ITV from advertising in the UK.
People around the world collectively spend on it's about 20 hours. a billion hours watch YouTube videos on their TVs every day. Last year, YouTube became the most-watched streaming service in America with 8.6% of TV views, ahead of Netflix with 7.9%.
Laurence Olivier in World at War, free to watch on YouTube. Author: Fremantle
YouTube combines high and low culture unlike any other place, online or otherwise. CoComelon's (176 million subscribers) simple animated nursery rhymes have become a favorite of babies and children around the world; The National Gallery uploaded a half-hour story about three paintings by Caravaggio, which were seen by two million people (four million visited the physical gallery last year); Thanks to YouTube, Norwegian third division football has a much larger following outside of Scandinavia.
The site presents all the episodes of Kenneth Clarke's documentary epic «Civilization» and «World at War», narrated by Laurence Olivier. Let's not forget the games, tutorials, and music videos that were the mainstay of YouTube in its early years and continue to be wildly popular. All this can be watched for free.
The Sidemen, a group of seven British friends who got together in 2013, have made a name for themselves on YouTube with wildly popular uploads of everything from video games to pranks and celebrity interviews. Their most famous member is Olajide “JJ” Olatunji, aka rapper and one-time professional boxer KSI. Together, they have almost 150 million subscribers.
It's reality TV, once a staple of commercial broadcasters, that is driving YouTube forward. The Sidemen had previously made their own versions of Michael McIntyre's «The Wheel» and «The Chase,» but «Inside» was their most ambitious project yet, but one with high production values and about 50 people working around the clock on the show.
Challenges on Inside included playing dodgeball, hitting each other in the face with scones, and I'm a Celebrity-style eating challenges of eating confectionery items such as fermented eggs and blue cheese smoothies. Successfully completing tasks added money to the prize fund; failure meant it was exhausted.
Of course, reality TV is nothing new. Big Brother, Survivor and Pop Idol became global hits in the 1990s and dominated both television programming and the tabloids. But as traditional TV viewing declines, especially among millennials and Gen Z, it has successfully found a new, albeit slightly less glossy, home.
“The problem is not the formats, but where you are. spreading them,” says Jordan Schwartzenberger, Sidemen’s manager. «The concepts are great, but you throw them into the abyss when no one under 50 is watching.»
The biggest YouTuber in the world is a reality show producer. MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson from North Carolina, has 278 million subscribers (more than Netflix's 269 million) and has become a phenomenon thanks to his wonderful videos of adventures and challenges. Shortly after The Squid became a huge hit on Netflix in September 2021, within two months Donaldson created his own version of the Korean game show with a real cash prize of $456,000. The pirated version was watched 620 million times, far more than the Netflix reality version that premiered two years later.
Donaldson's success illustrates why YouTube is the ideal platform for aspiring video creators. “They can move much faster and more freely than their TV counterparts,” says Liam Chivers, founder of social media agency OP Talent. “There's less red tape and schedule delays, there's no competition from other shows on their channels, it's just their content. This, coupled with the viral and always-on nature of social media and YouTube, is an ideal place for this type of content.»
So how worried should traditional broadcasters be about Google’s growing power? “Extremely,” says Tom Harrington, head of TV at Enders. “And not just linear broadcasters, but streamers too. All of TV is in decline because of YouTube. YouTube is under threat.”
Harrington adds: “A huge part of TV is celebrities walking around town on holiday. Think about how many videos on YouTube now are just people walking around on holiday, going to restaurants and watching things – it’s lifestyle viewing.”
Cover Run: Love Island ITV Photo: ITV
Unfortunately for broadcasters and streamers, the company has become a huge provider of programming in America thanks to its YouTube TV subscription ($73 a month or £57) that bundles cable channels at a time when millions of people on the other side of the Atlantic are canceling their traditional subscriptions to television. . It is also the exclusive home to select NFL games under a seven-year, $14 billion deal.
In recent years, YouTube has been experimenting with reaching beyond its core users who make homespun videos. It commissioned programming called YouTube Originals, including one from the Sidemen themselves, but scrapped it in January 2022 to allow more organic videos to appear.
One area YouTube has yet to figure out is a scripted drama, the other a focus of the old Originals line. However, people like Sidemen are not going down that path. “I'm not sure there's a place for that. I still think high-end scripted shows will still be on television,” says George Cowin, producer of Inside. “It’s too expensive to create for social media; In the time it takes you to make a short film, you can make an entire reality show. It doesn't really make sense.»
At least traditional broadcasters have something to hold on to.
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