Internal figures have revealed that Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL YouTube TV has evolved into the company’s most rapidly expanding product.
What Happened: Google’s internal system, Magic Eye, which is designed to monitor the growth and competitiveness of the company’s products, tracked YouTube TV’s growth from October 2022 to October 2023, reported Business Insider.
It revealed that YouTube TV witnessed a substantial growth of 48% within the past year.
The data also showed that YouTube TV recorded the highest engagement and retention rates among all Google products. 52% of YouTube TV’s users were regular users, while only 8% of accounts had lapsed.
Since its launch in 2017, YouTube TV has offered a blend of linear and on-demand programming. The platform’s growth can be largely attributed to the December deal with the NFL to stream most Sunday Ticket games on YouTube TV, which the company won after defeating competitors like Apple Inc.
Moreover, YouTube continues to play a significant role in boosting Google’s revenues. In the last quarter, YouTube reported a 12.5% year-over-year ad revenue increase, totaling $7.95 billion.
Google has been leveraging the growth of television as a form factor, evident from its recent announcement of new TV-focused offerings for advertisers, including 30-second unskippable ads when watched on TV, something users might not be enthusiastic about.
Why It Matters: Last year, in July, it was reported that YouTube TV was gaining market share from cable companies, further supporting the narrative of consumers cutting the cord and moving away from cable television.
However, earlier this year, YouTube TV experienced a price hike from $64.99 to $72.99 per month but reduced the 4K Plus add-on cost from $19.99 to $9.99 monthly.
While the platform cited the reason behind the price hike as “an overall rise in content costs,” it made people wonder if continuing to subscribe to them instead of traditional cable is still a viable option.
Meanwhile, advertisements on YouTube have started getting on the nerves of many customers. It has also received backlash from the likes of Elon Musk, who previously compared the video-sharing giant’s ad strategy with the phenomenon of “Ad creep.”
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This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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