London Olympics: YouTube taking sheen off TV

BANGALORE, INDIA: Which is the most watched TV Channel today? If you were to name one single channel, it would be YouTube. It's touching 4 billion views a day. The catch is it's not the same content but a plethora of them.

In the galaxy of channels, the television broadcasters are faced with a deadly change looming ahead. Distribution and relay of content have become easier. Access is made simpler. Prices have become cheaper or just plain free.

Devices are exploding the landscape. Technology has dramatically poised to take off and change the consumption habits. According to Reuters, 60 hours of content is uploaded every minute on YouTube. This has increased from 48 hours of video uploads in May 2012.

The emerging new generation is embracing this change like never before. The new-gen is consuming online content and time spent there is increasing everyday. Their search for celebrities, music videos, movie trailers, unfiltered news and premium news is all available at a touch to choose. The future of accessing video content is visible.

However, the current numbers are still skewed towards TV viewing in terms of average time spent by individuals. Though such data is not available yet in Asia. The gap is huge in America. The recent "New Yorker" article says there is 15 minutes of daily YouTube views compared to 300 minutes of TV viewing by the average American. This is changing. YouTube is working with content creators to build channels that will get greater stickiness. Greater following. Viewers will know what to expect and with regularity. Like you do today on TV.

But with 4 billion YouTube viewers every day already, there is a tremendous revenue opportunity that is emerging. Imagine all these viewers watching 5-10 second advertising spots. The geo targeting, profiling, and sheer reach will be an unbeatable combination for advertisers.

Beijing Olympics in 2008 had 4 billion viewers on its opening ceremony broadcast by the Chinese channel, at London Olympics 2012, YouTube is the channel which is offering live streaming to 64 countries of Asia and Africa. While we wait for viewership data from YouTube, you will not be in for a shock if the numbers beat TV viewership.

(Anil Kumar Ravindran is Senior Vice-President of CyberMedia India Ltd)

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