We now sit in front of the TV like our grandparents — YouTube has become the main source of entertainment. Every day, viewers spend more than 1 billion hours watching videos on TVs, which is more than on phones.
YouTube CEO Neil Mohan said in his annual leaf platform, a video hosting platform that resembles a full-fledged streaming service thanks to a TV app. Over the past two years, the service has glued» users to their TVs even more and has become the most popular streaming service in the United States.
Last year, TVs allowed comments and video descriptions to be opened on the right side of the screen, while the video remained on the left. The so-called «seasons» became especially convenient for flipping through video series with the remote control. The «Watch Together» feature allows you to add commentary to games and live events.
Increased demand (and, in fact, profit) prompted the video hosting company to add 4K mode extension to «stick» with the highest quality. 4K Plus subscribers (an add-on to the basic plan) can now download recordings for offline viewing.
But for this, the user has to pay an additional $9.99 for 4K Plus along with the $82.99 YouTube TV plan. It’s no coincidence that YouTube TV prices in the US have already been raised several times, most recently by $10 at once. In Ukraine, YouTube TV is not available, but Premium is actively used, which is significantly lower for our region. An individual subscription costs ₴99, a family subscription costs ₴149, and it costs ₴59 for students with a free trial month.
«For more and more people, watching TV means watching YouTube. But «new» TV is not like «old» TV. It’s interactive and includes things like Shorts (yes, people watch them on TV), podcasts and live streams, as well as the sporting events, sitcoms and talk shows that people already love».
The changes also affected users of the mobile application — Google added a sleep timer for everyone and not just YouTube Premium subscribers. Other new features include links to other users to create playlists together and easier video speed changes.
Many viewers turn on YouTube to have something «play in the background of» and not have to search for a new video every time. Google stepped up to the plate and began to test the button «play something», but so far only in the Android app for a limited number of users. Gamers have also started to watch videos and let’splays more than play: on average watch videos 8.5 hours a week on Twitch and YouTube — vs. 7.4 hours for games.
YouTube plans to improve features and provide new benefits to subscribers, including YouTube Premium. The upcoming updates include Key Plays for watching the most important moments of sporting events. В Reddit some complained that after one of the updates, the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) plays a live stream instead of a recording if the game is ongoing. It is not yet known what changes the video hosting service will make. Meanwhile, YouTube TV has amassed more than 8 million subscribers, and the number of subscriptions to YouTube Premium and Music has exceeded 100 million.
YouTube started showing 3-hour ads without the «skip» — option to overcome blockers
Source: The Verge
Spelling error report
The following text will be sent to our editors: