Cand Bob Iger’s Return to the Disney Helm and Reed Hastings’ Netflix Exit Rise amid Rising Concern on Feb. 16 that Susan Wojcicki is stepping down after nine years at YouTube CEO There was little rustling on the media pages. This is a sign of two things. First, Wall Street analysts and entertainment industry literati pay little attention to YouTube’s business, despite its status as the epicenter and synonym of global video. Second, it is overshadowed by the crumbling walls of its parent company, Alphabet.The tech giant’s embattled boss Sundar Pichai is fighting on multiple fronts, from Microsoft’s chat roomcommon technology– Inspired by Google searches against trust violators and the Supreme Court, what’s happening on YouTube must have looked like a sideshow.
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That’s not good for Ms Wojcicki. Her decision to hand over the reins to her deputy, Neal Mohan, may not have come at the height of YouTube’s success. A slowdown in advertising and competition from addictive short-video app TikTok combined to lead to a second straight quarter of year-over-year declines in ad revenue.Yet under her leadership, YouTube has become such an integral part of the entertainment landscape that, for many, DIY Manual, cookbook, babysitter, jukebox, yoga instructor, news channel and time slot, all in one. It has 2.6 billion monthly active users and a simple but effective revenue-sharing model that millions of creators rely on to keep their creations coming. Its answer to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, averages 50 billion views per day.
Data released this week by technology commentator Benedict Evans underscores that the platform has moved beyond social media video into more mainstream content.In the US, YouTube is television Viewership recently surpassed Netflix. Last year it paid creators almost as much as Netflix paid for its big-budget productions, according to Mr. Evans’ estimates. Celebrity YouTubers like MrBeast have similar audiences to Netflix hits.
It’s an ad juggernaut. While its $29bn in ad sales last year were roughly a tenth of Alphabet’s revenue, they amounted to “comparable” of the $140bn in global broadcast revenue, according to Richard Broughton of research firm Ampere Analysis. a large part”—television advertising market.Plus, YouTube competes with Spotify in music and podcasts, selling cable-like bundles on YouTube television, and, like Amazon and Apple, take a cut of subscriptions to other media companies’ streaming services. It even just reportedly paid $14 billion for the rights to broadcast live American football on Sundays. In short, China’s Great Firewall aside, it wants to be the stage gate for all kinds of small-screen video around the world, from user-generated clips and streaming to sports.
Ms. Wojcicki is the closest thing you can get to the aristocracy of Mountain View, even without the surname Brin or Page. Sergey and Larry first built the Google search engine in her garage. There’s no question she helped bring Google’s professionalism to YouTube. After YouTube’s early freewheeling turmoil—it was only a year old before Google bought it in 2006—she became the adult in the room and head of advertising. As she leaves, it’s worth asking whether the now post-adolescent YouTube benefits as much from its attachment to the mothership as it did in the past.Tim Mulligan middleIA, another research firm, Think Alphabet actually hinders YouTube more than it helps. Is it time to spin off?
For YouTube, there are many arguments in favor. One is focus. This is the upheaval in the entertainment industry, from TikTok and the streaming wars to the disconnection of paid services —television, that laser-like focus is essential. Alphabet has too many other things going on to give YouTube its full attention. Then there’s the business model. It will have greater freedom to experiment with subscription revenue without help from the ad giants. The third argument has to do with regulators. In a Supreme Court case on Feb. 21, justices cast doubt on whether YouTube’s use of an algorithm that recommends extremist videos violated anti-terrorism laws. Facebook is plagued by political debate over content. But being part of a larger company than Facebook’s parent company Meta makes YouTube an even more attractive target, especially for antitrustists.It extends the capabilities of services like YouTube television Regulatory concerns about Alphabet’s size could hamper its global growth.
Alphabet could benefit, too.Pichai’s panicked response to Chatcommon technologyAn artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence) partnership between Microsoft and a startup called Openartificial intelligence, raising doubts about his leadership. A YouTube spin-off would send a strong signal that he’s doubling down on this “generating” artificial intelligence. It would also put Alphabet ahead of the DOJ (doj), the company sued Google in January for allegedly monopolizing digital advertising technology. Alphabet denies it is a monopoly.But if the courts decide otherwise, a voluntary breakup, even if loosely related to ad tech, is preferable to a breakup doj-imposed half Nelson.
YouTube’s valuation as a standalone public company could be eye-popping.Its ad sales approach Netflix’s $32 billion in revenue, and that’s not counting its 80 million music and paid subscribers or television income. Laura Martin of investment bank Needham estimates it could be worth at least $300bn, more than half that of Disney and twice that of Netflix.
Control freak
If this all sounds too simple, that’s because it probably is. Page and Mr Brin, who control more than half of Alphabet’s voting power, don’t want to be the first tech giants to start dumping their family’s silver.However, with Chinese-owned TikTok in no rush to go public, investors may be happy to own shares of American equivalents — especially with global television giant. The new rich in the creator economy are likely to do the same. ■
Read more from our global business columnist Schumpeter:
Tech companies with artificial intelligence are giving modern warfare a new shape (February 16)
What would Joseph Schumpeter think of Apple? (February 9)
China’s BYD Is Surpassing Tesla As The Extraordinary Automaker (Feb. 2)
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