The mystery: Why are television channels so bad at YouTube?
Many television companies are awful at YouTube and they don’t even realise it.
Take BBC Three, for example. The UK youth channel, where I used to work, joined YouTube in 2013 and has since achieved 2.25m subscribers. This might seem impressive — especially when compared to rival channel E4’s paltry 0.5m subs — but not so much when compared to the the likes of British YouTuber Tom Scott, whose short, factual films about nerdy topics have earnt him 3.7m subscribers. Then there’s TomSka, another British YouTuber, whose comedy sketches and cartoons have resulted in 6.8m subs.
And of course there’s many others: Dan Howell (6m), Zoe Sugg (11m), or JJ Olatunji aka KSI (12m or 22m subs depending on which of his two Diamond Play Button-winning channels you go for).
I know these are the giants of UK YouTube and so maybe you feel the comparison is unfair. But consider: BBC Three has a reported content budget of £30m – £80m. Even if only a fraction of that goes on YouTube, it’s bigger than those of the indy YouTubers mentioned above. Also, the BBC has a long history of making premium television content; it has access to some of the best on- and off-screen talent in the UK; its channel has incredibly high levels of brand awareness (powered by advertising on a national television network); and it has the resources to upload videos almost daily (to date it has uploaded 2,479 videos — far more than all of those mentioned above).
What’s more, we know that YouTube wants to make its platform a welcoming place for television content, as it aims to capture more of the marketing spend that is currently spent on television advertising.
It all adds up to a mystery: why are these “amateur” indy producers with far, far fewer resources than the big TV channels, able to get much better results?
And why aren’t television channels doing more about it?
News channels are better, but not by much
News organisations generally seem to “get” YouTube better, but I still see a lot of underperformance.
For example, The New York Times has 3.4m YouTube subscribers, which might sound fair but to gain those it has had to upload 9,889 videos — a huge number!
In contrast, Philip DeFranco, who runs a daily YouTube news show, has attracted almost double the subscribers (6.36m) with just 928 uploads – a tenth of that of The New York Times.
Another way to see the difference in performance is to add up the total views on the channels (both around 1.2 billion) and then divide by the number of uploads. Do this and you see that De Franco’s videos get an average of 1.2m views compared to an average of 119k at the New York Times. One YouTuber and his small team is outgunning the biggest news brand in the world!
If comparing a lone YouTuber with a big news organisation doesn’t work for you, look at a more “professional” news channels like Vox which understands the platform much better, and as a consequence has twice the number of subscribers with a fraction of the uploads.
(By the way, I realise the flaws in using these metrics — for example, Watch Time would be better to look at than total views or subscribers — but I can only deal with what data is publicly available.)
It’s not an issue with quality
Both BBC Three and The New York Times make great videos (including some by me!) and I don’t believe the issue here is about how good the videos are.
This isn’t — as I see it — mainly a problem with content, but with the way organisations have arranged their content on YouTube.
I strongly believe that the same videos, published differently, could be delivering much higher audiences for these organisations.
The biggest problem: huge inconsistency
The number one thing indy producers get right is that their channels are much, much more consistent than those from traditional publishers.
A typical indy YouTube channel has one personality, sticks to one genre and one category (news, food, science etc). And then, if they want to do something a little different they will typically start new channels.
For example, explainer king CGP Grey has his main channel for his explainers, one for gaming, a general-purpose “not the best stuff” second channel and channels for his podcasts.
Compare this to BBC Three, which has everything from documentaries and drama to entertainment shows, stand-up clips, and comedy sketches (and probably other categories I’m forgetting about now) all on one channel.
Similarly, The New York Times channel includes everything from videos about movies (Anatomy of a Scene), the hard-hitting Visual Investigations series, and summer drinks recipes.
So, why is this important?
The importance of consistency for branding
One reason consistency is important is basic branding. A brand is a promise to the consumer about what they’re going to get. That’s why you can walk into a McDonalds or Starbucks you’ve never been to, in a country far from home, and you still feel confident you know what you’re going to get.
If a brand is full of very different elements that don’t seem to hang together, it stops being meaningful. “Confuse you lose” goes the saying, and I think this is the problem with BBC Three and The New York Times. “If I subscribe what will I get?” asks the viewer. And if they’re not sure they won’t click.
Contrast this with Vox, which has a strong, consistent identity. Its tagline is “explain the news” and although it covers a range of topics from foreign politics to music, and uses a range of reporters, it is all one genre (explainers), and has a consistent style. It doesn’t even do breaking news or live coverage, let alone cocktail recipes.
Another example is Vice News with its distinctive on-the-ground immersive reporting and preferred topics: drugs, violent crime, overseas reporting. It has a coherence.
Another way to show this is by looking at the channel descriptions on the ‘About’ pages. BBC Three says, “We engage with the issues that matter to you, bringing you stories so fresh you can practically splash your face with them.” The New York Times‘ says, “All the news that’s fit to watch”.
Both are well-written but fundamentally vacuous. What do these descriptions really mean? It reminds me of when politicians say they’re in favour of “fairness” or “opportunity”. As if anyone would ever say the opposite (“We want unfairness!” “We bring you the issues that don’t matter to you!”) — what has really been said?
Think of the YouTube channel where you work. Is it consistent? Does it have a “thing”?
Forget the word “channel”
I feel like TV people are especially misled by the word “channel”. A television channel — especially the traditional ones — have very varied content. Morning news is followed by daytime soaps, and then evening documentaries and dramas. But it’s a disaster to take the same approach on YouTube.
Think instead of a television programme. Whether it’s Top Gear or a gardening show, each episode will stick to one genre, a recognisable set of presenters and have a clear idea of its audience. You don’t randomly stick a segment about a new Ferrari into Gardeners’ World.
The importance of consistency for the algorithm
Another big reason for consistency is it helps the YouTube algorithm do its job.
It’s important to remember that unlike other platforms with algorithms (e.g. Netflix), YouTube doesn’t really know what each video uploaded is. After all the videos aren’t made by YouTube but by creators.
So YouTube has to try and guess by reading the titles, descriptions, transcribing what’s said, and using software to identify the objects in each frame.
This means the algorithm uses a channel’s previous uploads to help guide it in who to show a new video to. For example, if you’re a gardening channel, it’s likely the video you just uploaded is about that topic too, and YouTube can confidently show it to viewers who’ve liked that content in the past.
But if instead of a gardening video, you upload something about drag racing, when YouTube offers that video to your normal gardening audience it’s (most likely) going to get a poor reception. If it was a human going through all the videos it might see the video and know, “Oh this is a video about motoring. I’ll suggest to this other group.”
But as YouTube’s algorithm isn’t (yet) that discerning, the more likely scenario is that it will show it to the channel’s regular audience, note the poor reception, and just decide your output isn’t as good as it once was.
Before you know it, your audience — even if they’re subscribers — will stop being shown your videos as the algorithm offers better-performing channels instead. Your subscribers will have been — to use YouTuber Matthew Patrick’s term — “burnt out” by the algorithm. This is how a channel can have millions of subs and yet only a few thousand watching its new uploads.
Of course, as YouTube’s algorithm improves, perhaps one day the channel where a video is uploaded won’t matter. If someone publishes an interesting explainer about politics on a gardening channel, the algorithm will be so smart it will pick that video out and suggest it to me regardless of where it came from. But for now at least, we need to give it a helping hand and be much more consistent.
One objection I hear to this recommendation is that some people like a mix. After all, a TV channel offers a variety of shows in one evening and a weekend newspaper has a variety of sections for readers to choose from.
While it’s true that audiences like variety (though personally I think creators get bored of something long before the audience does), the key thing to realise is the mixing job is not done by you on your individual channel, but by YouTube. Its algorithm aims to give the viewer the perfect mix of fresh and known content to keep viewers happy, but to do its job it needs the individual shows and programmes to stick to what they do.
Be more targeted
After being consistent, my next biggest recommendation is to be more targeted in who your YouTube channel is aimed at. In other words, the target audience for a channel should probably be narrower than your broadcast instincts tell you.
There are several reasons for this:
- More consistency. Serving a more targeted audience usually means you’ll stay more in one area and style.
- It makes your videos appear more valuable. When a channel is more specific to a viewer, it usually appears better than generic alternatives. For example, not “travel videos”, but “travel videos for those who care about the environment.”
- It makes your videos actually more valuable. If you’re able to focus on one particular audience you become much better at knowing them, their interests, problems and so on.
- There’s less competition, so it’s easier to be different. For example, rather than a generic news channel — of which there are many — a news channel focusing on just on health or on environmental issues will have fewer competitors.
Being targeted isn’t how traditional publishers are used to thinking. In fact, many television producers pride themselves on understanding the general middle-of-the-road viewer rather than any particular niche. It’s even in the name: broadcasting.
But while being targeted feels alien, this approach is pretty standard advice — almost conventional wisdom — in the world of online content more generally. As the saying goes (and rhymes if you have an American accent): “The riches are in the niches”.
Note: I’m not arguing for all your YouTube output to focus on one group, just for each channel to focus more narrowly on a particular audience. Just as individual television programmes focus on particular audiences.
If you’re just starting up this might mean it’s better to focus your energies on getting one channel up and running with a consistent offer for a particular audience, and then as that takes off, moving on to establish others. Basically, anything is better than bunging a whole bunch of videos that don’t really belong together on one channel.
How should you organise your content?
Okay, if I’ve convinced you that consistency and being targeted is important, what next?
There are several options, but here’s the first rule: don’t base it on linear channels. As explained above, mixing lots of genres like on traditional television channels is too confusing and runs counter to the algorithm. If you want to look for inspiration from television channels, look at more recent creations, such as The History Channel and Discovery. These are more consistent and targeted offerings.
(By the way, I don’t think basing your channel on a young age demographic is a good idea either, as it’s such a diverse group. Management may think it’s a good idea but it’s fundamentally patronising to the audience, which rarely define itself by age… but I’ll have to save this rant for another day.)
Option 1: Base your YouTube channel on one programme
One option is to base your YouTube channels around specific television programmes. Because this approach is automatically targeted and consistent, it can work well:
- Top Gear from BBC – 7.9m subs
- Last Week Tonight from HBO – 8.6m subs
- Tasty from Buzzfeed – 20.3m subs
- Mashed from Channel 4 – 2.9m subs
However, do you have enough content to fill one channel? You don’t actually need to upload as much as people tend to think (more on that below) but if your programme is only on air for a few months a year and you don’t have funding to keep content going in the “off season” then this approach is not ideal.
For example, the UK version of the The Apprentice seems to have made an effort in 2019, struggled, and now appears to have given up. It last uploaded in 2019 and the channel now only has 14.4k subs. This is what you want to avoid.
Another issue might be that it’s limited in scope. Pages like this are effectively “fan pages” and, thus, the size of the audience is limited to those who will like the show. Now this audience might be bigger than you think (it’s an international, not national, market after all) but it’s something to consider.
Finally, this approach makes it hard to introduce new programmes. For example, ff a YouTube channel is devoted to one particular sketch show, it can feel disruptive and awkward to introduce clips from new comedies.
Option 2: Base it on topic
Basing your channel around sports, food, news & politics, gaming etc is the obvious approach, but often ignored by traditional publishers. In fact, YouTube has categories you can put each upload into. (With minimal effects on the video’s performance these days as far as I can tell.)
This is one thing that news channels have going for them on YouTube compared to traditional channels, and one of the reasons they seem to do better.
Examples include:
- Physics Girl – physics
- Marques Brownlee – tech
- It’s Okay to be Smart – science
- Munchies (from Vice) – food
Option 3: Base it on a benefit
One thing marketers like to do is to think about “features” (what a product does) as distinct from “benefits” (how it helps the customer). For example, an iPod’s feature was “storage for 1GB of MP3s”, but its benefit was “1,000 songs in your pocket”.
If you can do this for your channel it can be powerful. Here are two examples:
Option 4: Base it on demographic
Examples include:
- Pero Like from Buzzfeed – for “English-speaking Latinxs”
- CrashCourse – for students
- Refinery 29 from Vice – for young women
Option 5: Base it on genre
My particular love on YouTube is explainer channels, but interestingly, these channels can often play around with the topics they cover without this inconsistency seeming to hurt them. The fact they are consistently one genre seems to compensate.
Option 6: Base it on an online community
The internet is powered by online communities and if you can create a channel that serves them (in a way that isn’t already being done) it can be very powerful. For example, the channel Name Explain is strongly inspired by the etymology subreddit.
Option 7: Base it on a personality
This is the one that feels most neglected by traditional publishers.
Considering how successfully this works for so many indy YouTube channels it’s kind of crazy. Think about it: when you see a channel with millions of subs and no big infrastructure behind it, it’s usually one built around one personality. There is clearly a big audience demand for it but traditional publishers seem to ignore this. It’s like a superpower they don’t want to use.
Sure I can see downsides — what if you build up the channel and then they leave? — but then this is often true for television programmes, many of which are very successfully built around personalities. In fact, the television/YouTube partnerships that do work, tend to be ones based on personalities: The Late Late Show with James Corden, Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah etc.
Examples:
- Simone Giertz – funny Swedish inventor
- Johnny Harris – former Vox journalist
- The Try Guys – split off from Buzzfeed
Or combine!
Usually, successful channels combine a number of these angles, which add up to something consistent and targeted. For example, Johnny Harris’ channel (1m+ subs with just 63 uploads!) comes from combining his personality, category (news) and genre (explainers). And Simone Giertz’s channel combines her personality and a love of machines that make you laugh.
To summarise:
Stop bunging everything on one YouTube channel!
Instead, move towards a portfolio of YouTube channels that are more targeted and that make clear sense to the viewer. Just as a good television programme has a clear sense of what it is and who it’s for, so should your YouTube channel.
To be honest, all the big internet publishers moved to this model many years ago. Here are the portfolios of Vice and Buzzfeed:
