YouTube is back with another recap for 2024, bringing insights into YouTube on TV and how the content performed among viewers who watch it on the big screen. YouTube on TV Recap 2024 reveals that viewers globally streamed over 1 billion hours of content daily on their TVs.
A considerable chunk of the big screen audience on YouTube majorly tunes in to sports content and kids programs. For sports, YouTube recorded a year-over-year increase in content watchtime of over 30%, courtesy of fans wanting their lineup of clips, highlights, and post-game interviews.
YouTube tried to increase engagement by piloting a feature called Watch With, which allows sports creators to offer live commentary, analysis, and reactions to games and events. The company is working on some new features for 2025 that will enhance the watching experience for fans and regular users.
YouTube on TV also served as a hotbed for podcast content in 2024, with viewers watching over 400 million hours of podcasts monthly on their living room devices. The overall living room viewership is also increasing because more creators have started to upload high-quality content.
As of September 2024, the company noted that the share of 4K video uploads on YouTube went up by over 35% year-over-year. This has increased revenue for the creators from TV by 30% year-over-year.
YouTube added several features for big-screen watchers this year. It rolled out a new player interface for TV apps, which cuts back on the traditional "lean back" experience. It tried to boost the subscriber numbers for creators by adding a subscribe button directly to the video player on TVs. Early tests showed over 40% gain in net subscribers through TVs.
Apart from that, YouTube is introducing a new parent code feature for TVs, which prevents kids from watching YouTube while being signed out or getting into accounts meant for older family members. YouTube on TV recap comes more than a week after the Google-owned company announced the YouTube Music Recap 2024.