YouTube vs Traditional TV

Source: swim.com.au

Eric Schmidt of Google claims that YouTube has already overtaken traditional TV (Legge 2013). YouTube’s search engine ranks second in popularity after Google. In recent months, YouTube managed to claim an audience of 1 billion unique visitors per month (Legge 2013). In 2011, Neilsen estimates that American viewers spend about 32 hours and 47 minutes watching traditional TV and much less time on the internet watching videos. The article entitled ‘Traditional TV has survived the net threat, but for how much longer?’ by John Naughton reports that viewers may no longer be able to distinguish videos that are made for TV and YouTube in the future. Google, who owns YouTube, have future plans for YouTube, which may pose as a serious threat to the TV industry (Naughton 2012).

In my opinion, YouTube does not pose a threat to traditional TV due to the different context of use and the amount of time users spend on YouTube.

The context of use for YouTube and traditional TV is different. YouTube is used as an alternative when traditional TV is not available. It is most useful when users are on the move and not at home because YouTube can be accessed from anywhere and at anytime. YouTube is only used at home when the users want to do a quick check up or listen to music. It is also used as a personal media device if the TV set is not nearby (Oksman et al 2007). 

Furthermore, the amount of time spent on YouTube is usually much shorter than the amount of time spent on conventional TV (Oksman et al 2007). YouTube requires an online internet connection therefore; users tend to get distracted by other online websites or social media. Users typically watch shorter lengths videos on YouTube and longer movies on the TV. Users will only watch films and longer programs on YouTube when the traditional TV is not available (Oksman et al 2007).

In conclusion, I don’t think that YouTube will pose as a threat to the traditional TV. After all, reports show that consumers spend less than three hours on YouTube per month (Simply Zesty Limited n.d.). This shows that people still watch TV the traditional way.

References                                                                    

Legge, J 2013, ‘That’s already happened: Google’s Eric Schmidt says YouTube has already overtaken traditional TV’, The Independent, posted 5 May, viewed 6 November 2013, <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/thats-already-happened-googles-eric-schmidt-says-youtube-has-already-overtaken-traditional-tv-8601048.html>

Naughton, J 2012, ‘Traditional TV has survived the net threat, but for how much longer?’, The Observer, posted 15 January, viewed 6 November 2013, <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/15/john-naughton-tv-versus-youtube>

Oksman, V, Noppari, E, Tammela, A, Makinen, M and Ollikainen, V 2007, Mobile TV in Everyday Life Contexts – Individual Entertainment or Shared Experiences, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 215-225

Simply Zesty n.d., ‘Online TV grows in popularity, but still playing catch-up with traditional media’, viewed 6 November 2013, <http://www.simplyzesty.com/Blog/Article/January-2012/Online-TV-Grows-In-Popularity,-But-Still-Playing-Catch-up-with-Traditional-Media>