The Decade That YouTube Changed TV

In 2005, YouTube started gaining early popularity with short 3-minute videos, which weren’t a threat to mainstream television.

By 2007, there were presidential debates and short celebrity skits to watch. Music and cat videos ruled the roost for years before the influencer group took over.

Youngsters of all age groups find Youtube celebrities in the same league as any traditional pop or movie star. These Independent creators are responsible for nearly five billion videos streamed daily on the platform. 

The Shoestring Budget ‘Anybodies’ mostly start with nothing but a Webcam or a Smartphone, showing their skills to the world. Their USP is their authenticity and reliability, which helps them garner the following of millions.

As advertising revenue gets higher(currently $16 to $25 billion per year), the YouTube platform is slowly becoming more professional and ‘TV-like’. The sponsors now sound familiar (like Johnson & Johnson or Nike) and content is slicker and longer, with better production values and less controversial stuff that might scare away the advertisers.

As YouTube scares away bad content, makes it longer, glossier and more advertisement friendly, it is creating the same corporate-friendly sameness that many despised in TV and thought of the YouTube platform as ‘indie’. It is a corporate transformation of a hippie place, where anyone who is not toeing the line can be barred from earning anything.