When Brian Albert first started leading upfront negotiations for YouTube 12 years ago, there were still over 100 million cable TV subscribers in the U.S., and YouTube was still seen as a desktop video platform. By the end of 2024, that number dropped to roughly 70 million cable TV subscribers as YouTube accounted for a staggering 11.1% of all TV viewership in December.
Since YouTube moved from the tech-focused newfronts to the more content-focused upfronts in 2022, the company has paid out over $70 billion to more than three million creators. Additionally, YouTube routinely leads Nielsen’s monthly report of the most-watched streaming services, and the company reported that in 2024 over one billion hours of its content was consumed from viewers’ living rooms globally. YouTube is no longer an oddball in the TV landscape; in many ways it’s TV’s future.
But despite the company’s success, pitching old-school advertisers on the creator economy is still a challenge, which is why YouTube is “simplifying” its upfront conversations to focus on “five pillars that mirror how our agency buyers and clients think about the market at large,” Albert, Google’s managing director for YouTube Media Partnerships and Creative Works, told TheWrap.
The first of those pillars is focusing on the top 1% of YouTube channels that have been ranked by the company’s proprietary preference score. Called YouTube Select, those high-tier channels remain the company’s hero offering, an advertising term used to describe a brand’s top product or service.
Next up is sponsorships, which allow brands to be more involved in the “game around the game” when it comes to buzzy live events. These can include official event clips and highlights as well as branded collaborations with creators, like what YouTube has done with the Masters Tournament or the NFL. These clips are all packaged into AI-powered playlists designed to serve relevant content to viewers.
YouTube’s third major area of focus is the reason for the upfronts season: live sports. During the 2024 Paris Olympics, there were over 12 billion views on content related to the event. “Sports is central. We have relationships with the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball. We obviously have our NFL Sunday Ticket deal. So we will package up that inventory and sell it,” Albert said.
The final two pillars are YouTube’s scaled offerings, which include the company’s AI-powered video formats, Video reach campaigns and Video view campaigns, as well as YouTube Shorts. The short-form video offering has seen over 2 billion monthly logged-in viewers as well as 70 billion daily views.
Here’s how YouTube is breaking down its vast ecosystem to appeal to upfront buys. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: YouTube Shorts is a unique offering. The obvious comparisons are Instagram Reels and TikTok, but because it’s connected to YouTube itself, you can use Shorts to lead people to longer videos. So how are you thinking about Shorts when it comes to advertisers?
Brian Albert: There’s two ways you can access the vertical video ad slots within the YouTube Shorts feed. One is you can run a dedicated YouTube Shorts campaign where the only place your ads are going to be shown are within the YouTube Shorts feed. The second opportunity is with those AI-powered formats like Video reach campaigns and Video view campaigns. If you upload a vertical video alongside a horizontal non-skip six-second ad, you’re also eligible to run in the Shorts space.
From a viewership standpoint, we see people sitting on their couch watching YouTube Shorts on the biggest screen in the home. It’s a tab within the YouTube main app, so it’s easily accessible on your TV screen as well. We’ve been tracking [the Nielsen reports] since May 2021, so for almost four years. In March, YouTube was at 12%, and we started at 6% [of overall TV viewership]. So we’ve literally grown our share 100% over the last nearly four years without live sports, which is pretty staggering.
With YouTube, there’s always the question of creator versus premium content. How are you thinking about those two verticals?
I’ve got a couple trigger points. This is one of them. Twelve years ago, everyone in the media was still referring to YouTube as user-generated content — which is my other trigger point — when a lot of our creators were literally filming content in their bedrooms with their phone. That’s not the case today. If you go out and visit any of our top creators and look at the production studios they built and the teams they’ve assembled, they truly are next-gen media companies. They are the new Hollywood.
As a result, quality is really in the eye of the beholder. For us, it just comes down to where are we choosing to spend our time. Premium is not about having “famous” actors in your content. It’s about what people are choosing to watch. More and more, it’s creator-produced content on YouTube, and the [Nielsen] gauge bears that out.
To focus more on the upfronts, the Spotter Showcase happened a few weeks ago. How is YouTube looking at that? Does that feel kind of like a pat on the back or does it feel like competition?
It’s not competition because all the creators that they put on stage make their home on YouTube. We support this third-party ecosystem that’s grown up around the platform because they’re out selling our creators and our content as hard as we are every single day.
YouTube recently updated its mid-roll ad functionality so that ads appear at more natural breaking points in the video. Can you speak a little bit more on that?
As we continue to evolve the end user experience, these are all examples of things that hopefully allow us to balance our users’, creators’ and advertisers’ needs. We have this incredibly delicate ecosystem of interest that we have to effectively balance at all times. If we over index on one at the expense of another, it could throw the entire platform out of whack, which is why, at times, we will make decisions that are good for users, good for creators that may not necessarily be exactly what our advertisers want to hear. But it’s in the interest of just trying to keep this ecosystem at equilibrium.
Our ad load is not as high as our competitors. The reason we do that is because if we were to stuff more ads into every video, it would create a worse user experience even though, on the sales side, it would, in theory, enable us to make more money. We have an organic team that sits separate from our ads team, and they’re singularly focused on ensuring an optimal user experience, and they’re not swayed by things that I’m concerned about, like what’s going to help us drive more revenue.
Alex Cooper’s company has been outspoken about putting video podcasts on YouTube versus Spotify because it gives them more control over their ad load. How are you thinking about advertising specifically when it comes to video podcasts?
YouTube is the largest video podcasting platform out there. Over a billion people a month watch video podcasts. To me, it comes back to the YouTube Partner Program and the fact that, a very long time ago, we agreed to share revenue with our creators. So my other hot button is when someone writes that we don’t pay for our content, when, in reality, we’ve paid out over $70 billion over the last three years through this partner revenue share. That allows people to make a living as a YouTube creator. I’m sure that’s what she’s referring to because there’s been more advertiser demand for buying podcast bundles, which we’ve built. The monetization for our creators is going to be attractive versus other platforms.
How do you anticipate that the Trump administration tariffs are going to impact the advertising market, specifically when it comes to YouTube?
If you give me a crystal ball that’s accurate, I’m happy to give you an answer. I feel like we sort of lived through uncertainty during COVID. At the end of the day, nobody can accurately forecast what things are going to look like Q4 through Q3. What we did back in COVID, which we’ll continue to do, is we offer all of our upfront advertisers flexibility. It’s already hard enough to plan in the summer for media that’s going to run Q4 to Q3. If you put any sort of uncertainty out there, it just makes it even more difficult.
The big headache for everyone in Hollywood is catering to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. And YouTube is at a great advantage because you guys have them on lock. What advertising trends are you noticing for these two generations? What works for them?
We have this amazing study that found online users find YouTube creators are 98% more influential than other platforms. I think that’s the big difference. Our Gen Z audience — really, our entire audience, but if we’re just focusing on Gen Z — there’s a deep connection with our creators that’s hard to describe because there is a two-way relationship. You’re able to comment on a creator’s video, you’re able to subscribe to their channel and follow them closely.
I feel like everyone has their story of a creator they’re following who is 100% aligned with whatever their passions and interests are, which is different than other platforms. If you’re just scrolling in a vertical video feed, you’re not identifying with the creators. YouTube as a platform revolves around channels, and those channels equal creators. So if you were to ask my son or anyone else who are your favorite YouTube creators, everyone has their list.
Recently Netflix head Ted Sarandos said that YouTube is where you kill time versus spend time. What do you think about that?
I saw that quote. [My team] had to hold me back from posting something on LinkedIn. Listen, if you interview Ted, I would just ask him to look at the Gauge. With 12% [of total TV viewership] versus where their share is at, I know exactly where people are spending their quality time.
