YouTube strategist Paddy Galloway returns to Colin and Samir with the data behind TV overtaking mobile, and what it's rewriting about video length, formats, and what counts as a win.
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3 weeks ago
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
YouTube's audience has moved onto television, and that single shift explains why videos got longer, why formats are turning into branded shows, and why raw view counts matter less than returning viewers.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A YouTube creator or strategist deciding whether to lengthen videos now that TV accounts for close to half of top creators' viewership.
Someone building a channel around one repeatable format who wants to know when and how to turn it into a branded show.
A creator anxious about the shrinking long-form real estate on YouTube's new homepage and the shorts push.
Anyone trying to figure out what to optimize for now that raw view counts are becoming a weaker signal.
SKIP IF…
You're looking for short-form or TikTok-specific tactics; this is a long-form YouTube strategy conversation.
You want step-by-step SEO or thumbnail A/B-testing instructions rather than trend analysis and case studies.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
YouTube strategist Paddy Galloway shows Colin and Samir client data proving TV has become the top device type for top creators, up from about 23% of viewership in 2021 to over 50% now, and average view duration is up 77% in four years. That shift gives creators 'permission' to make longer, slower videos, like Red Bull's 31-minute, barely-edited Everest video, and rewards turning a proven format into a branded show for TV-style bingeing. Raw view counts matter less than they used to: 50,000 to 100,000 views already puts a creator in the top 0.01% ever, returning viewers and satisfaction matter more than reach, and AI can copy almost everything except physical access and real brand relationships.
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Paddy shows client viewership data proving TV became creators' single biggest device type around 2023, rising from roughly 23% of viewership in 2021 to over 50% today.
04:20 – 07:00
02 · Case Study: Red Bull's Everest Ski Video
A 31-minute, barely-edited Red Bull video that would have been cut to 10 minutes five years ago became one of the year's most-viewed videos because TV viewing gave it room to be long and slow.
07:00 – 10:11
03 · Viewer Behavior: TV vs. Mobile
Colin and Samir describe how their own viewing splits: appointment, binge-style episodes on TV from creators they already know, versus restless discovery of unfamiliar short videos on mobile.
10:11 – 14:10
04 · Navigating the New Homepage Layout
The YouTube homepage now surfaces only about two long-form videos before a shorts block, shrinking long-form's discovery real estate even though in-session recommendations still favor long-form once a viewer commits.
14:10 – 15:32
05 · The Shift from Formats to Shows
Paddy argues the smart response to shrinking real estate is turning a proven format into a branded show, citing a small creator's longevity show built to earn multi-video binges.
15:32 – 20:01
06 · Views vs. Returning Viewers
Paddy admits the industry over-indexed on raw view-maximizing, illustrated by a low-view, highly personal Colin and Samir video that pulled 80% subscribers and real audience connection.
20:01 – 23:30
07 · Rethinking Success Metrics on YouTube
Paddy reframes what counts as a big number, arguing 50,000-100,000 views on long-form already puts a creator in the top 0.01% of creators ever, and that YouTube hides the satisfaction metric creators actually need.
23:30 – 27:15
08 · The Future of Public View Counts
Colin and Samir debate whether YouTube should hide public view counts the way Netflix hides viewership, since visible numbers now drive copycat 'milking' more than they signal quality.
27:15 – 31:11
09 · The Risk of Format "Milking"
Paddy tells the story of a creator told to 'keep digging' after one video worked, remaking an 'atheist visits a church' format across six months of churches and religions before competitors could copy it.
31:11 – 33:51
10 · Authenticity and Personal Connection
A private conversation with a 50-100 million subscriber creator revealed he'd never told his own audience his origin story, showing viral reach doesn't automatically build the connection that converts fans into buyers.
33:51 – 38:03
11 · Turning a Format into a Branded Show
Paddy lays out named examples, Drewski's dating show and Quinlan Blackwell's Feeding Starving Celebrities among them, describing a slow, natural evolution from repeated format into a titled, logo'd show.
38:03 – 40:21
12 · Syndication: YouTubers on Streaming Platforms
Creators with shows are syndicating onto Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, MrBeast's videos repackaged into Beast Games and themed collections, Jesser's YouTube content re-cut into a Hulu show.
40:21 – 43:56
13 · Will YouTube TV Look Like Netflix?
The group weighs whether YouTube's TV homepage will surface shows instead of individual videos, against the risk of gatekeeping new creators who currently break through with a single standalone video.
43:56 – 48:50
14 · Current Frameworks: The "Every" Format
Paddy runs through formats currently working, led by the 'Every' format, every church, every robot vacuum, every self-help book, which works by promising comprehensiveness the viewer won't do themselves.
48:50 – 53:52
15 · Thumbnail Psychology and Engagement
A breakdown of a 17-million-view 'tiny office pod under my stairs' thumbnail shows how one small design choice, empty negative space and a person on the stairs, can be the difference between 3 million and 17 million views.
53:52 – 56:30
16 · The Role of AI in Creative Workflows
Citing YouTube's data that 92% of creators use AI somewhere in their workflow, Paddy says most usage is research and AI-enhanced thumbnails rather than fully generative video, treating it as an accepted new design tool.
56:30 – 1:00:20
17 · Maintaining Human Moats in an AI Era
With Instagram's head of product warning that authenticity itself can be manufactured by AI, Paddy identifies physical access and brand as the moats AI can't yet cross.
1:00:20 – 1:02:45
18 · Long-form vs. Short-form Systems
Paddy argues YouTube's long-form recommendation algorithm, mature since around 2011, is meaningfully more sophisticated than the newer shorts algorithm, so he isn't worried AI-driven upload volume will disrupt long-form the same way.
1:02:45 – 1:04:57
19 · The Importance of Curation and Taste
Facing a hypothetical 80-100 million uploads a day, the group agrees some editorial curation will have to return, even though YouTube's original lack of gatekeepers is what let creators without connections break through.
1:04:57 – 1:05:25
20 · Closing Thoughts and Future Outlook
Colin and Samir close by noting the one prediction that held true from last year, that people still watch YouTube, and hope to make this an annual episode with Paddy.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Roughly 40 to 50 percent of top YouTube creators' viewership now comes from connected TVs, up from about 23 percent in 2021.
The average length of long-form YouTube videos has risen 51 percent since 2020 as TV viewing rewarded longer, slower-paced videos.
Red Bull's 31-minute Everest ski video, with almost no narration or fast cuts, would have been cut to 10 minutes five years ago.
Average view duration across Paddy Galloway's client channels rose 77 percent in four years, from 4 minutes 35 seconds to 8 minutes 7 seconds.
On desktop, YouTube's homepage now shows only two long-form videos and an ad before the shorts block, shrinking long-form's visible real estate.
A personal, non-strategic Colin and Samir video that got only 120,000 views was 80% subscribers, showing relationship value can beat reach.
Breaking 50,000 to 100,000 views on a long-form video already puts a creator in the top 0.01 percent of creators who have ever existed.
A dog channel doubled down on one format, golden retriever meets a rescue dog, and grew from 11,000 to nearly a million subscribers.
The 'Every' format, every church, every self-help book, every robot vacuum, works because it promises comprehensiveness the viewer won't do themselves.
92 percent of creators reportedly use AI somewhere in their workflow, mostly for research, thumbnails, and motion graphics, not full video generation.
One small thumbnail design choice, empty negative space around a staircase build, was estimated to be the difference between 3 million and 17 million views.
Brand and physical access are the two moats AI can't cross yet: being the first camera somewhere, or working with an athlete AI can only imitate.
20 million videos are uploaded to YouTube every day; Paddy expects that volume could reach 60 to 100 million a day as AI production scales.
A creator with 50 to 100 million subscribers had never told his own audience that he dropped out of school at 15 to pursue YouTube.
Takeaway
TV Viewing Quietly Rewrote YouTube's Rules
THE TV-ERA PLAYBOOK
Half of top creators' views now come from TVs, and that single shift explains why videos got longer, why formats became shows, and why raw view counts matter less than returning viewers.
01The Great Device Shift: YouTube's Rise on TV
TV overtook mobile as the top device for Paddy's biggest clients around 2023, rising from about 23% of viewership in 2021 to over 50% now.
The shift is driven by both creators making longer videos and YouTube's own push to court TV advertisers with connected-TV viewership data.
02Case Study: Red Bull's Everest Ski Video
Red Bull's 31-minute 'skied down Everest, no oxygen' video used almost no narration or fast cuts; five years earlier it would have been forced into 10 minutes.
The slower pace, once considered a retention-editing sin, became the selling point once TV viewing made room for a video to simply let a moment unfold.
03Viewer Behavior: TV vs. Mobile
On TV, viewers batch episodes from creators they already know, similar to bingeing a show, and reserve mobile for discovering brand-new short creators.
High 'switching cost' on TV, fumbling with a remote, means viewers commit to a video or channel rather than hopping around like they do on phones.
04Navigating the New Homepage Layout
Opening YouTube now shows roughly two long-form videos and an ad before a shorts block, a fraction of the long-form real estate available a few years ago.
Once a viewer clicks into a long-form video, the session still recommends more long-form, so the real loss is in the homepage's first impression, not the watch session.
05The Shift from Formats to Shows
A smaller creator built a show called 'Human' around a fitness format specifically because binge-able shows earn more from one click than a single video does.
The goal isn't beating the homepage algorithm, it's giving a viewer who already clicked once a reason to stay for three or four more videos.
06Views vs. Returning Viewers
A niche, non-strategic Colin and Samir video that got only 120,000 views was 80% subscribers, showing relationship-building can matter more than reach.
Paddy compares algorithm anxiety to benching a striker after one scoreless game: one underperforming video doesn't erase the relationship value it still built.
07Rethinking Success Metrics on YouTube
Breaking 50,000 to 100,000 views on a long-form video already puts a creator in the top 0.01% of creators that have ever existed.
YouTube doesn't expose a satisfaction metric, so creators default to chasing views even when a smaller, deeply satisfying video may matter more.
08The Future of Public View Counts
Hidden view counts wouldn't cost creators any of their own performance data, AVD, click-through, returning vs. new viewers, needed to make decisions.
Public view counts mainly now drive other creators to copy a proven idea fast, which Paddy argues could reduce format originality if hidden.
09The Risk of Format "Milking"
Paddy's advice to a breakout creator was literally 'you've struck gold, keep digging' rather than treating one viral video as a one-off.
The logic behind repeating a format is defensive: if the creator doesn't double down on a proven idea, another channel will copy it instead.
10Authenticity and Personal Connection
A creator with 50 to 100 million subscribers had never told his audience he dropped out of school at 15 to pursue YouTube, despite it being his real story.
Solving 'the viral equation' and building genuine audience connection are two separate skills; huge reach doesn't guarantee a fan feels like they know you.
11Turning a Format into a Branded Show
Turning a format into a show should feel like a natural evolution, branding mixed in over time, rather than a one-time relaunch.
Named examples like Drewski's dating show and Quinlan Blackwell's 'Feeding Starving Celebrities' show the same pattern: a repeated format wrapped in an intro, title graphic, and recurring premise.
12Syndication: YouTubers on Streaming Platforms
Amazon Prime organized MrBeast's YouTube videos into separate branded shows, insane competitions, sports competitions, rather than one undifferentiated video feed.
Jesser's YouTube videos were repackaged into a Hulu show, showing shows built for YouTube can be resold onto streaming without new production.
13Will YouTube TV Look Like Netflix?
A full switch to a Netflix-style, shows-only homepage risks gatekeeping new creators, who currently break through with one strong standalone video, not an existing show.
Paddy expects YouTube to selectively surface known shows a viewer already watches rather than replace video-first discovery outright, to protect new-creator discoverability.
14Current Frameworks: The "Every" Format
The 'Every' format works because it signals comprehensiveness the viewer isn't willing to do themselves, every denomination, every robot vacuum, every self-help book.
'I built every X' or 'I found the location of the Windows screensaver' videos work partly on nostalgia and partly on a built-in ending: the video is over once the thing is found or built.
15Thumbnail Psychology and Engagement
Paddy estimates a single design choice, leaving empty space around a staircase build in a thumbnail, was the difference between roughly 3 million and 17 million views.
A 51-minute video only works because its cold open is 16 seconds: the retention-editing lesson from the fast-cut era still applies before a video is allowed to slow down.
16The Role of AI in Creative Workflows
92% of creators reportedly use AI somewhere in their workflow, mostly for research, title workshopping, or motion graphics, not full video generation.
Paddy treats AI-enhanced thumbnails the same way the industry once accepted Photoshop: a normalized design tool, not a red flag.
17Maintaining Human Moats in an AI Era
Instagram's head of product has said it will get easier to fake human authenticity with AI, undercutting the old assumption that 'real person' alone was a moat.
Physical access, being the first YouTube camera inside a wildlife sanctuary or filming a real NFL player, is a moat AI can't cross because it doesn't know what's there.
18Long-form vs. Short-form Systems
YouTube's long-form recommendation system, running since around 2011, is more mature than the shorts algorithm launched in 2022-23, which still surfaces more misses.
Paddy isn't worried that AI could push daily uploads from 20 million toward 60-100 million, because a ranking algorithm still only ever surfaces the videos that are actually good.
19The Importance of Curation and Taste
Colin argues his own career is a direct result of YouTube's lack of gatekeepers, comparing it to a 1970s UK radio host who could only ever find so many bands by hand.
Paddy and Colin agree curation and permission-less discovery aren't mutually exclusive; Spotify's editorial playlists already prove algorithmic reach and human curation can coexist.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
The Great Device Shift
The industry term used in this episode for YouTube viewership moving from phones and desktops onto connected TVs, now roughly 40-50% of top creators' views.
Average View Duration (AVD)
The average length of time viewers watch a video, used as a signal of how well a video holds attention independent of its total runtime.
Format milking
Creator slang for repeating a proven video concept multiple times, which can grow a format into a franchise or wear out an audience if overdone.
The abundance era
Paddy Galloway's term for the current period on YouTube, where roughly 20 million videos are uploaded daily and nearly every video idea is already being made by someone.
Public view counts
The visible view number under a YouTube video; debated in this episode as something YouTube could hide, the way Netflix hides viewership, to reduce copycat behavior.
Accelerator
Paddy Galloway's creator coaching program, referenced repeatedly as the source of several small-channel case studies discussed in the episode.
Resources
Things they pointed at.
09:31videoRed Bull — "I Skied Down Everest, World First, No Oxygen"
36:23channelThe Golden Kobe Family (dog channel)
33:51channelMichelle Khare — Challenge Accepted
38:03productJesser — Balling Out with Jesser (Hulu)
40:21productMrBeast — Beast Games (Amazon Prime Video)
56:30videoVantara wildlife sanctuary access video
1:00:20channelGood Mythical Morning
1:00:20productThe Office (referenced in a Nielsen most-watched-shows study)
58:40channelAli Abdaal
1:00:20channelChris Williamson — Modern Wisdom
Quotables
Lines you could clip.
05:50
“It's a 31 minute video that's made for TV. It doesn't even have narration.”
Concrete, surprising stat about a viral video breaking every retention-editing rule.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
20:01
“If you're breaking 50 or 100,000 views on a long form video, you're in the top 0.01% of creators that have ever existed.”
Reframes a modest number as a huge accomplishment, useful for demotivated small creators.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
29:10
“If you don't milk something, someone else will.”
Short, quotable defense of repeating a proven format.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
57:30
“AI doesn't have that because it doesn't know what's there.”
Crisp articulation of physical access as an AI-proof moat.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
41:40
“It's Top Gear, not Breaking Bad.”
Punchy distinction for how a YouTube show should be structured versus a scripted narrative show.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
The Script
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Today's guest is Paddy Galloway. He's one of the most sought -after YouTube strategists in the world. And that's largely because of the work that he's done generating over 10 billion views with clients like Red Bull, Jesser, and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Now, we wanted to bring Paddy back on the show because YouTube is going through one of the most significant shifts in its history. More people are watching YouTube on their connected TVs than any other platform. And this shift is having major impacts on creators.
It's changing what gets seen and what doesn't. Now, the great thing about Paddy is that he's in the weeds day to day across multiple YouTube channels. So he brought forward frameworks and real case studies and real videos that are working in this new era of YouTube.
Now, if you've never listened to an episode with Paddy Galloway, you are in for a treat because his accent is fantastic. It's just delightful. I could listen to him talk about anything.
All right, now for our episode with YouTube strategist, Paddy Galloway. All right, Paddy, welcome back. Thank you.
Back by popular demand. Exactly. So you brought some graphs.
I did. Let's talk about this first one. This is titled The Great Device Shift.
What are we looking at right now? So it's a very common talking point that people are mentioning a lot these days about how YouTube is going to TV. But myself and my team wanted to actually dig into what the data shows about how drastic this shift actually has been.
So this is a really interesting graph where we looked at some of our biggest clients, and this is millions worth of view data. And we noticed this really crazy shift around 2023, where you see for the first time, TV starts to lead with our clients as the biggest device type they have for their viewership. If you kind of look back to 2021 and where it is now, I almost...
So I find it hard to like even imagine how quickly viewership behavior has changed over these years. Like to go from what's that 23, 24 % in 2021 to now being over 50 % of our clients viewership is pretty wild. Yeah.
So I think most creators we talk to now say somewhere between 40 and 50 % of their viewership comes from television. So this is like a major talking point for YouTube because it really helps attract advertisers. Right.
There's still a lot of money spent on television advertising. So YouTube's pushing, saying, hey, look, people are watching on TV. Has this been led by a change that creators made?
Or is this led by a change that YouTube made? I think it's a few things at once. So I think about two or three years ago, people started to realize that long videos were performing better.
And you start to see the shift. We can actually just go and look at one of the graphs I have here real quick. Just the average length of a long form video.
So this is from 100 billion views worth of data. And we can see the mean and the median there increasing. It's a 51 % since 2020.
Creators in 2020 were making kind of 12, 15, 16 minute videos on average. And creators today in 2025 and 2026 are topping out at kind of 20 to 20 minute plus quite frequently. That's been a big factor in just.
the device type shift, you know, because of longer videos. When was the advent of mid -rolls? That was a long time ago.
That was a long time ago. Yeah. I don't remember.
I guess we never made long enough videos to have mid -rolls. There was a time when it was like you had to be longer than, what, seven minutes or ten minutes or something like that. Yeah.
I wonder if this is just by nature of creators getting more sophisticated and better at storytelling and production. that naturally you're going to make longer videos. Or if it was a mixture of different incentive structures, I even think for us, it wasn't so intentional to make longer videos.
It just was the format. Like we were making a podcast, so it was inherently longer. I think you can't overlook the fact that the YouTube app is and has always been free.
And the moment that it ended up on TVs and it was recognizable and people had a relationship to it, they're going to watch on their TVs. The longer the content gets, the better it performs, the more ads that play, the more monetization opportunities that came to creators that they could invest back in their content, continue to make higher quality, longer form videos that then get watched again on screens.
It felt like this perfect storm that led to this right now. So can you show us an example of a long video that has worked for one of your clients? Yeah, I've got a great one right here.
So this is a video that Rebel posted a few months ago. Rebel are one of our clients. And it's, I skied down on Everest, world first, no oxygen.
Now, let's get the elephant out of the room. I mean, the concept itself is amazing. So, you know, that's obviously helped this video travel as far as it did.
It's got over 30 million views. It was one of the most viewed videos of Q4. But I thought it was interesting because I know firsthand from working in YouTube strategy for as long as I have, that five years ago, this would have been a 10 minute video.
we would have made it 10 minutes, maybe shorter. It might have been five, 10 minutes. And now in 2025, because of these trends we're talking about, because of the TV device type taking over, it became a 31 minute video with not too many cuts, not a really fast paced edit.
It doesn't even have narration. It's a 31 minute video that's made for TV. A few years ago, everyone was complaining about this kind of like retention editing and, you know, oh, YouTube is becoming too fast paced and all this sort of stuff.
And here we are a few years later Most of your videos recently has 31 minutes of unstructured footage. This was a refreshing video for that reason.
I told you, but I looked at this thumbnail for weeks and I'm a skier and I didn't click on it. And then finally, someone told me about a week ago that it is not edited like a normal YouTube video. They're like, it's not stereotypically what you would expect.
It moves way slower. There's a little bit of text, but then it just lets this scene unfold. And I was like, okay.
I'll check it out. I think for that reason, it was refreshing for a lot of people. My assumption, even with 31 minutes, is that it still would be highly edited.
There'd be a ton of investment in how it's edited and how it's cut. But it moved a lot slower. Take us into the room of the discussion about this video.
Is it like, let's try and make this 30 minutes? Or is it just the best footage is 30 minutes? I think it's a permission thing.
I think three or four years ago... Even me myself as a strategist, I don't think I would give a client permission to make a video that's that long and that kind of free -flowing. When we see the data, this is the thing.
I think there's a lot of things happening at once here. There's TV happening. There's YouTubers realizing they make more money from making longer videos.
And then there's also just an increase in strategy. People think more strategically about what to make and how to approach content. So when I think about this video, it's like...
It was such an incredible feat. How sad would it have been if it was a five -minute video? It deserved to breathe and be longer.
So I think the decision makers and everyone involved in this video was like, this deserves to be 31 minutes. So there's something really interesting with the word permission. Because the thing that I think about as a viewer of YouTube now, when I sit on my couch and watch a YouTube video, the switching cost is so high.
And what I mean by that is to futz around with the remote and get to another YouTube video or like another channel, it's too much friction. So I actually, when I open the app, I'm looking for a recognizable experience that's like a show. And the show that my wife and I watch is from Stephen Lim, Adam, and Andrew, who have a new show that's very similar to their show called Worth It, where they try a bunch of different foods at different price points.
I will save up three of those episodes, which are each in the 20 -minute range, until we're ready. And then we'll watch all three in a row. And that's the end of our YouTube viewing journey.
I would say my viewing behavior is actually very different on TV. I'm not sitting down looking for the 20 -minute episode from the creator that I know. I'm actually looking for the shorter video from the creator I've never seen before.
Really? Yeah, I'm actually really moving around. And I think I am now being served.
I've been telling you, I've been watching more new creators than ever. on TV because I'm finding creators who are making like six to eight minute videos. And I enjoy that feeling of switching from moment to moment.
If I want 20 to 30 minutes, I'm still reserving that actually for Netflix, Hulu, HBO. Like that to me is a different co -viewing experience with my wife than if I'm solo traveling throughout YouTube. Are you advising clients against the 12 minute video?
you know, it's one of those things, it's always hard to, to just say this, you know, some, some pieces of content deserve to be short, you know, but I think my take is usually that if there's a choice between like making a great 12 minute video or a great 24 minute video, they're both great. I will make the great 24 minute video.
Um, I know that sounds obvious, but it's, it's one of those things. It's like, because of these trends that we're talking about, because even some of the things you're mentioning there, like, and to go onto that point a little bit more. I think it's really interesting to think about wanting to make videos that someone sees on their phone and then says, I'm not watching this until I sit in front of the TV.
I actually have a playlist on one of my YouTube accounts, which is like, watch on TV. And I see a video and it's like, if I had never seen the video before and I saw it on my phone, I think I'd be like, wow, look at this monster video with this crazy feet. This doesn't deserve to be consumed on a six inch screen.
I should put this on a 50 inch screen in my living room. I also think creators are starting to brand their thumbnails in a way that messages to you that it should be watched on a TV, in a way that feels like a film. We spoke about Lister's before, but when you look at the thumbnail for Lister's, the doc about birdwatching, it looks like it's being submitted to a film festival.
There's another one called Extreme Beachcombing. Have you seen the thumbnail for that? And the graphic design, I think it shows awards and credits on the thumbnail, which implies I'm not watching that on my phone.
It's 20 plus minutes. It's asking you to watch on the TV. So part of this question of permission or this topic of permission for creators, there's been a lot of discussion about the new homepage layout.
Are you familiar with this? Yeah. So, you know, basically when you open up YouTube now on desktop, on TV, even on mobile, when you open up YouTube, there's a lot less space for long form videos because that space has been consumed by short form videos.
Even when you look at like opening up on desktop, it's typically two long form videos and then an ad as the first and then a shorts block. That's a lot less real estate to get a long form video in front of people. And I think to quote you from our last episode, you know, YouTube is a click and watch platform.
There's actually not that many long form videos to click on, right, when you open up YouTube. And the suggestion is to dive into shorts. How is the emerging creator getting affected by the limited amount of real estate, the high switching cost?
So I think there's a really big distinction between like the homepage layout and then when a viewer is actually in a watch session, right? It's almost like the homepage layout is like, what do you want today? Like what do you want right now?
And yeah, look, there's less real estate than there was before. And I think the natural reaction is that's kind of scary. Like there's, you know, a lot of us.
built our careers on long form. That's how I built my career. That's how you guys built your career.
So it's kind of scary to think that we're going to just be in a situation where, you know, our shelf space is declining when short form shelf space is increasing. But at least when I look at the data and look at our accelerator, we, you know, we're working with hundreds of students, like you mentioned a year. I think the actual change between like, you know, it's still so new.
So we're still like looking at this. I'm not seeing too much of a decline in viewership across the channels we work with, to be honest. What I am seeing is like, an increase in average view duration because of some of these things we talked about like there's another graph which i can show you in just a second which shows that over time as well but it's almost like because of the length situation sometimes i almost look at it as like clicks are still really important especially if you have less real estate but it's more about when someone does click are they are they staying with you for longer so there might be less real estate but when people click they're staying with those years for longer and i always think it was interesting because when shorts was first introduced i was talking to you about this point off air it's like there was a lot of panic around this is going to nuke people's attention span.
You know, no one's going to watch long form anymore. People are going to watch for less. The attention span of the youth today is going to fall through the, you know, it's going to crater all this stuff.
And, you know, we're sitting here three years later after shorts was introduced and all of our clients, the average view duration has gone up, like people are watching for longer. So I am a little bit worried about the real estate thing, about how much space long form is getting there. But I do think.
the amount of times you open a homepage on YouTube, it's different to being in a session, right? Like it's almost like you open it up and you're like, what do you want today? Do you want shorts?
Do you want long form? When you start watching long form, you're suggested at long form. So you're still going to get some shorts, but you're getting long form suggestions beside you and you're in this kind of watch session.
But I haven't seen any material difference in viewership to the clients we work with just yet. So let's take a look at the AVD graph. If you look at the difference between 2021 to 2025, and we took a number of our biggest clients and some students that have gone through the accelerator that shared their data with us, 77 % increase in average view duration on long form over the last four years, which is pretty significant.
That's a meaningful change from four minutes, 35 to eight minutes. So I don't know exactly how this ties into this like layout situation, but the way I look at it is like, well, when someone does make that decision, they're staying for longer because YouTubers are making longer, better videos than they were. four or five years ago.
Yeah. To me, this is all about the switching cost. We used to switch a lot from video to video to video to creator to creator to creator.
My behavior is not that anymore. I will settle into a video much easier now. And I'll likely settle into a channel, which maybe I'm unique in that, but that is how I operate now.
And, you know, we know how many people now are starting to think about their channel as... Like shows, right? Obviously the obvious example is someone like the amazing Michelle Carey with Challenge Accepted.
Do you know Sam Alcom? Yeah, he was just here. Yeah.
So he went through our accelerator. You know, he's making his own series, you know, which is basically his like touring around the different, you know, military and military equipment. Access granted.
And we actually had someone through our accelerator. I'll show you here. And she posted this video, which is titled Shredded at 72, the simple routine behind his insane strength.
First of all, great thumbnail. I'm so proud of her for how well she did with that thumbnail. But if you look at a show like that, she calls it human.
It's a longevity show. And she's thinking about this and she's a small creator. Sierra's thinking about that.
She's like, I'm making a show. I'm looking at Michelle Carey. I'm looking at these people.
I'm making a show for my channel because of exactly what we're talking about. When people start binging a channel, there's multiple videos they want to watch in a row. There are 20 minutes, there are 30 minutes.
I think... Her situation is less about worrying about the homepage layout and more worrying about like, when I have someone in the door, can they watch multiple of this format? Yeah, I think continuing to center this conversation around permission is a really important one because we're all trying to gain permission.
And I'm wondering across your clients, and even what you're seeing, how you're evaluating views versus returning views. Yeah, this is a really interesting one because I've actually got a... A kind of a cool little printout to show you here.
You got a ton of printouts, man. That's not surprising at all. You acted like that was surprising.
You're like, you wouldn't believe it. I have a printout. This might be familiar to you guys.
That is familiar. Two sad guys with yellow mics.
I want to bring this one up because we talked about it on the last podcast. You know, you call me the view maximizer. My job is to grow channels views.
That's what I do. And that's what my team does. I do think we kind of reached a point, I think even the biggest creators would admit this as well, where we all got so obsessed with just maximizing views that we kind of forgot how important a returning viewer is and how important, you know, building a relationship with your audience is.
And I think you've got like the stats on this, but I think you mentioned like, what, 80 % of this was subscribers, which is your typical episode is much less. Much less. Especially if an episode does get caught a bit by the algorithm, does scale to 500 ,000, a million views, then obviously we're reaching a lot of new people.
So I have this analogy I use for this because I think creators got into this super dangerous mindset of being terrified of experimenting, terrified of doing a video that was for them and their audience as opposed to the biggest possible video. And I understand that. And I think at times I've probably been...
one of the people pushing that agenda of my focus. But I've always said there's this analogy where it's like, if you have, let's just use a soccer analogy. Like if you have a striker and he's scoring, you know, five games in a row, six games in a row, and then he has a game where he doesn't score, you know, he might still play well, but he doesn't score.
You're not going to immediately bench that player and say you're never playing again. And I think the YouTube algorithm is quite similar. And people get so afraid of it, thinking that it's going to punish me for trying something or it's going to relegate me to the dungeons of no views.
And also that performance from that player could have been potentially more valuable if you're to look at the game tape, quote unquote, to see did that person maybe not make an assist, but the second assist. How much work did that player actually do during that game to win? Exactly.
So I think it is a bit of a trend I'm seeing where I think not to say that being still very like strategic with what you make isn't important, but I think every channel, like if you want to make a video every one and four, one and five, where it's like, look, this is not something that's like following all the rules of YouTube and being the most optimized house on all, but it's a video that we want to make.
And I watched this video and I thought I knew you guys better after watching it. I was like, wow, that was really cool. That was honest.
That was vulnerable. And, you know, I think that relationship is very important to create. I think one thing I will say about this video, that's that was very different for us is it was something we couldn't not make.
Does that make sense? Like we had no choice but to make this video. This video was like a therapeutic video and it was an honest thing we had to say.
There's no strategy behind it. This was the least strategic thing we did last year. There's no business case behind this.
It's just we had to say something. And I think... We are entering this era of YouTube, which I have continued to call the abundance era.
20 million videos are uploaded to YouTube every single day. Every video that I think about is probably being made right now. That is like a strategic video, right?
Every video is being made and it's either being made by another creator or it's made by AI or it's made by someone prompting. It's made by somebody is making that right now. So the only...
thing you can think about or should think about is like, what's my thing to say? What do I actually have to say? Because hopefully you find a unique perspective that only you could share.
Now, the scary thing about sharing your own unique perspective and your own honesty is that what if nobody cares? What if nobody watches? And then I think we have to go back and go, when you make a video that's very honest and personal, it is insane that 120 ,000 people watched it.
Yeah. It is insane. Like that's just us saying something about our life.
It's potentially one of the most incredible things that's ever happened to us. Like if you really think about our entire lives, like that we just said something extremely niche about who we are as people and 120 ,000 people watched it in a month. Yeah.
It's mind blowing. I also want to ask you this question because I've been having this conversation a lot about what is a lot of views now? You know what I mean?
What is a lot of views? If we're looking at this world where there's more content than ever, people are settling into channels more, what are we as a community optimizing for? What's a lot of views?
What's a big audience? What's the success metric? If you're a small creator, I always say, if you're breaking 50 or 100 ,000 views on a long form video, you're in the top 0 .01 % of creators that have ever existed.
That is, to me, still a big number. And it's something that just feels like when you get past 50, just feels like, oh, that's like, that's a lot of people. That's a stadium full of people.
Yeah. This conversation gets really like interesting because of how much, almost like because of you maximizing, right? And because of even like dubbing and like international audiences, it's like, sometimes it's hard to look at a video on the surface and be like, is this good?
Just because it has a lot of views. Like, I think in my opinion, like three or four years ago, when you saw a 20 million view video, You were like, whoa, like that feels rare.
I see 20 million view videos all the time now, you know, and we've worked on them. Like we just showed a, you know, 31 million view video from a client. We've, you know, so many videos that we worked on this year that passed 10 million views with clients.
It feels like that's happening more and more. So yeah, the kind of idea of what is a high view count is kind of weird now. One thing I think is true though, is like satisfaction.
We talked about that a little bit last time. Satisfaction is a metric. YouTube don't give us that metric.
So therefore we don't track it and we don't measure it and we don't judge by it. I bet you the satisfaction for that video, even though you maybe didn't teach people lots of things or whatever, I bet you the satisfaction for that was high because viewers were like, oh wow, I feel like I actually got to know Colin and Samir, you know?
So I think about this a lot with our clients, not only like view counts, I think about it as like, what does this say about us? What does it say about the brands? Like I love when we might make a video at Rebel and the comments are all like, only Red Bull could do this.
And there's that kind of real like feeling around the thing. Yeah. That can feel bigger than just like a huge view count can.
I think public view counts are becoming irrelevant for the reason that you just said. Like when you see a 20 million view video now, you've seen it a million times. We got a short with 44 million views.
I think 120 ,000 views on this video that we made. I don't think it matters. I don't think it played into the decision for a lot of people to click and watch considering it's majority subscribers for us.
For me, actually, I'm... Maybe this is so counter, but I am turned off by a 20 million view video. I'm hesitant to click on it because I'm concerned at what made it so...
Why is this so mass appeal? Traditionally, I would have always thought that YouTube needs to hold on to public viewership. But now the more that these videos are being watched on TV and it feels more like Netflix where viewership is not public, I'm starting to sway towards...
maybe YouTube should get rid of public viewership. Maybe it doesn't matter. Oh, that made me feel a little bit.
Paddy's about to throw up. Yeah. His whole company is view matching.
Yeah, tell me what you think. So I think from my perspective, the reason that would make me nervous is just because of how much I use that to understand trends and what is the signal. basically.
Patty, I'm trying to put you out of business. Okay.
Oh no. So that's interesting. Expand on that, that you, you use views to understand the signal.
And I want to contrast that with, you know, now we're starting to talk about YouTube on TV, but the implications for the future with YouTube on TV, it's starting to feel more like a Netflix or another streamer. There's different signals for that than views. We actually oftentimes don't know.
With those. So let's talk about like signals of trends and what the implications are for the future. The fact that that graph is probably only going up in terms of YouTube being watched on TV.
Yeah. What is that? Yeah.
So I think it's one of those things. It is hard to measure. But when we think about that video we showed a while ago from Red Bull, like I think something I noticed with that video.
And I don't know if you noticed this, but you said that so many of your friends were telling you about this video, right? And that's why I watched it. And that's why you watched it?
Similarly to if there's a show on Netflix I need to watch. There's so many 20, 30 million view videos that have been uploaded in the last year that none of us have seen. And no one's ever talked about.
They've just gone into the ether. Like, what was that? There's some videos, though, that seem to just get this kind of public discourse around.
And it's very similar to when there's a Netflix show or whatever. It's like, you know. My mother's calling me saying, have you seen the Squid Game thing a few years ago?
It's insane. I can't believe it. I'm like, yeah.
Viewership and cultural relevance are two totally different things. Yes. And it's all about that kind of like regrettable watch time versus like watch time that makes you feel, wow, I just spent time doing something or watching something that was really special.
I don't want to make too much of a big prediction, but I really think as we look at some of the data we've shown, some of the examples we've shown, like you can't get away with just. a great title on film now with no substance anymore. And I feel like you maybe could two or three years ago.
And I'm sure people hear this and disagree because they're like, I just watched a video and it was terrible. But substance is subjective. Yeah.
It's a bit subjective. I want to know what you think about public viewership. So I like it from a trend point of view of being able to, from a strategist perspective of being the person who gets channels more views.
I like to look at it and say, that gives me some signal of what's working. But I think, and this speaks to all of our point, that signal has weakened over the last year, two years, because of a lot of things like dubbing and things like that. And that doesn't mean that international views aren't still really important.
They are. But there could be the same video and one video has dubbing and one video doesn't. And the video with dubbing has four times the views.
So you might intuitively be like, that's a better video or that's like a more popular video. But it's like, well, it's just because the other one didn't have dubbing. You know, it depends what you're optimizing for.
Like if I'm selling a product in America, you know, views overseas aren't as important to me as, you know, English speaking views in America. So I think it matters a little bit about what you're optimizing for. But I look at the views for a lot of signal in that sense.
And I think taking that away, I think people will find out other ways to find like formats and what's working. But we are in this interesting stage. Like one of the other points I was...
i was going to bring up it's actually another video which i'll show you here so we got this one here atheist goes to christian church for the first time so this was someone who went through um one of our accelerator cohorts last year and at the time we joined the cohort was like a three four five thousand subscriber channel um and then throughout the court they were able to ideate this with my team came up with this format which i think is really interesting like you know the only reason that's viral like just kind of classic uh interesting story you have to click to answer.
The point I was going to make here is this video was made and I remember telling this creator and I remember my team telling this creator, you've got to keep digging. You've struck gold, keep digging. And over the course of the next six months, this video is basically remade with different churches, with different situations, different religions.
And I think the reason that happens, this is to tie us all together here, is because of public view counts. Because everyone else seeing, damn, that video did really well for that small channel. Let me double down on it really quickly and let's steal it or let's, you know, adapt it for my channel.
Oh, you're saying other channels made it. No, he made it. Oh, he made it.
The reason he made it is because of the point I was saying to him, which is like, hey, channels are going to double down really quickly on your stuff. And there's this sort of talking point creators used to have, which is like, I don't want to over milk something, which I think is very valid and fair. But I always make the talking point of if you don't milk something, someone else will.
And like someone else will double down on this format and get the sort of growth and success from it. But wouldn't it be better if the viewership wasn't public because less people would double down on his idea? Yeah.
And he still would get all the data that he needs to make the decision to make this again. He'd still have viewership. He'd have average view duration, click -through rate, all the things that we care about.
Returning subscribers versus new viewers. He'd still have all that data for himself. It might actually award...
originality more yeah it would definitely create more originality yeah because i think it would play a lot into the audience's decision making i actually disagree like i personally i won't click a video if it has too few views that's a problem for me yeah when i so occasionally you know youtube will send you a video and it's like you were too high has like 240 views and i'm like that's a that's youtube trying to just slot someone in here i'm not interested in that but anything above like 10 to 20 ,000 in that range, I'm like, I'm game.
Does not matter to me if it has 10 or 20 ,000 or if it has 50 million. So I think the other thing about public viewership too and optimizing for views, I think what you said is correct. It's like, what are we optimizing for as YouTube creators?
Because, you know, I only saw this because you tweeted about this. This never came across my feed. This is a successful series.
But there's this other conversation around cultural relevance and brand relevance. You mentioned Michelle Carey. Michelle Kari is very relevant to the YouTube ecosystem.
Sean Evans, even more relevant to the broader cultural ecosystem. And, you know, a lot of times, even if we look back at like Casey Neistat in his heyday, his viewership was amazing at that time for what he was doing, but it wasn't astronomical. It wasn't Ryan Trahan, dude, perfect.
But I think sometimes as creators right now, you know, optimizing purely for views is a dangerous game because you might get lost in the cultural relevance conversation. And to have cultural relevance is like, what is my story beyond views?
So like Sam Ekholm is a great example. He's a awesome creator. I would bet a lot of people right now are hearing about him for the first time.
How does he get elevated into the broader cultural relevance conversation? He makes stuff like, Cleo Abram makes somewhat similar stuff to him, or they're in the same category. He could be in the broader conversation.
You know, I just thought about when you were saying that, which I think is such a, it's made me think of such an interesting point. I'm not going to name the creator, but I was on a call with the creator a few months ago with, I'm just going to say between 50 and 100 million subscribers. So one of the biggest creators in the world.
Okay. And this creator gets lots of views, you know, very well known, huge audience. Kind of talking to me about like, look, I've noticed that like, you know, I'm not.
converting as well as I want when I sell things. I want to kind of build a better connection with my audience. I don't think I have that.
He's kind of solved the viral equation, but he hasn't solved the broader thing. And, you know, I'd watched a few videos before, you know, beforehand and I was like, these were good videos that were well -made and whatnot. I was just sort of asking him a bit about himself at the start of the call, just like friendly, not even trying to figure anything else.
And he's like, you know, I did this, you know, I dropped out of school to do YouTube when I was 15. It was a huge risk. It was all these things, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, wow. like admirable like that took a lot of guts and you know what what a story and you know he's telling me if it's if a story and he's just like such a interesting likable young creator and then i was like uh does your audience know that and he goes no i'm like why like almost that personal connection i feel like sometimes we just get so caught up in this like optimized quick viral everything perfect people watch humans at the end of the day and i think like when when the ability to make big spectacle videos has been democratized to a certain degree.
Like, I think personality just takes over. That's why people like Ryan, people like Michelle, I think have that culture relevance. And I was actually just saying to my friend, just on a phone call earlier, and we were just talking about, you know, this podcast and, you know, some of the things we might talk about.
And I was just saying, you know, if you flashback to like, what, 2018, 2019, MrBeast made a video. I think it was cutting a table in half with a plastic knife. So I was just joking.
I was like, if a kid did that today, he would spend two weeks cutting his table in half, you know, destroy his life and get five views because I don't think anyone would really care. It's like, that doesn't feel like the sort of video that would work right now. We're just in a different meta, different world.
I want to talk about also a format versus a show. When you've pushed people to build a show or how much you're pushing people to say, build a show. Because something that I look at on YouTube right now is that with more viewership on television, With more of what I just said, that you need some element of a brand story beyond viewership, having the casing of a show is a great way to do that.
Hot Ones is obviously the leading example, but we're seeing this more recently with, you know, Drewski has his dating show, Could Have Been Love. And it's a show. Quinlan Blackwell has Feeding Starving Celebrities.
That's a show. Speed Launched Speed Goes Pro. That's a show.
Even when he goes and does like live streams in Africa, he makes it appointment viewing. He makes it a thing. And I think...
That's the only way for creators to cross that threshold of cultural relevance now is making your thing a thing and making it a show. I think using this creator, Evan, as an example, this video, Atheist Goes to Christian Church for the First Time, that's a format that he replicated again and again. And if I find that video algorithmically or in a vacuum, I'm like, this guy makes videos.
This is a video he made. But if that has an intro and it's called like finding meaning. and there's a show logo and this guy's whole purpose is finding meaning.
In his life, yeah. In his life. Then I am more inclined probably to go look for the next episode and to remember the next episode and to see him as someone different than just, this is a kid making videos about religion.
And maybe that doesn't have to change in the packaging as much as just like intro, style, how it's made. Title graphic. Because I think you start, yeah, you start with a format.
I think it starts as a format and then it goes into something. I even think, I don't know all of Michelle Cairo's story, but I'm pretty sure it would have started with like, oh, this is my format. I try things.
I try this thing. And it's like, oh, wow, there's actually a show here. And before you know it, there's like a name and there's a, you know, you're looking forward to every episode and whatnot.
And a big distinction I always make is like, it's Top Gear, not Breaking Bad. You know, it's not necessarily like an ongoing deep narrative as much as it is individual episodes that have a format. So they kind of become the same thing.
And there's actually another example of this I'll show really quickly. This is a fascinating example. This is a channel, Golden Kobe Family, a dog channel, went through our accelerator in 2024, I think with 11 ,000 subscribers at the time of joining.
Now, I think close to a million, if not over a million. And he had this video, Golden Retriever meets his new sister, puppy sister for the first time, because he just adopted this new Doberman. And I saw that and I was like, you should do that again.
So we did a video which was like first week together. And then I remember him. making this point or saying this thing, which was like, okay, well that's done well twice now.
And it did, it did great. It got over 2 million views during the cohort. I remember it went viral during the court, which is such a wild experience.
But I remember him saying, well, you know, that's that done then, you know, because naturally you can't get a new dog every week unless you're unethical, right? You're not going to just adopt a new puppy every week, like just to make content. But I was like, no, you're thinking too literally.
Like, I think the format is dog meets like. vulnerable with their dog that's kind of the format like oh just like an innocent little puppy your dog meeting it the interaction so this creator now they're almost their entire channel has been built around this format like golden retriever meets completely shut down rescue for the first time like there's a limited amount of dogs you can adopt there's an unlimited amount of dogs that you can make a video around and you know showcase in your videos so like that's an example of i think maybe creators traditionally have been this mindset of like i come up with ideas I come up with new ideas, new ideas.
I need five or six different buckets of content I make around. And the thing I keep seeing is just these creators who, honestly, their channel is a format. And then over time, maybe that transitions into a show, like the Golden Kobe show.
Yeah, so when do you advise this to get turned into a show? I think it has to feel like a natural evolution as opposed to like a big launch. We as humans always want to just do these big, like cut the ribbon, like rip the bandaid off.
It's this now. But I think it becomes something where it's like, Bit of branding mixed in, you know, consistent format.
And before you know it, it becomes like something that just feels like a show. I think it's a slow shift as opposed to like an immediate thing. What happens in this video?
Like how can it be 15 minutes long?
You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I feel like the story's over if I'm being honest. Yeah.
I mean, I want to see it happen. I want to see it. But I think once I see it.
I'm good. How is this 15 minutes long? Well, now you're exposing me for not having watched the video.
This creator went through the car a long time ago. Great, great person. His name is JJ.
And, you know, he's got a great team now that helps him with these types of videos that do a great job. But, you know, when you look at these videos and when I've watched these videos in the past, the story behind the rescue dog, like what's happening, their interactions, it's not just purely, oh, they're meeting. It's like, it's a whole story around this like kind of beautiful thing, which is the fact that his dog is...
incredible with other dogs and kind of bring dogs out of their shell so it becomes almost like a transformation this dog that's afraid of other dogs meets this you know lovable golden retriever and that's the story we're also seeing creators with shows distribute those shows on other platforms so making money by syndication yes the show's showing up on netflix or hulu or 2b So there's also like, as you really continue to grow and some of these channels are seeing significant viewership, like there are opportunities to put your shows on other platforms.
I looked at how Amazon Prime Video did this with Jimmy. And obviously Beast Games, number one show on Prime Video right now. It's the signature show.
They've invested a ton of money into it. But part of that is they've brought on Jimmy's videos onto Prime Video, but they are segmented and categorized. So there's one that's like, Mr.
Beast, insane competitions. Mr. Beast sports competitions, and they're all different shows, but the formats have been organized into shows.
And I think the other example is Jesser is now on Hulu, balling out with Jesser, but it is his YouTube videos repackaged into a show. And so again, if we look at like the democratization of voice has happened, YouTubers can tell great stories that capture people's attention. It doesn't require.
Hollywood production studios. But when abundance happens, when there's so many of us and we're all being watched on the same screen and there's limited space, marketing matters a lot. And that's what a show does.
A show changes the nature of how it's talked about, how it's perceived, and the recall of it. Totally. And I think a point I'd make on this as well, it's about the optionality of having that opportunity to make a show.
You can do that. You can do that with YouTube now. I still think we're not quite there in terms of pure episodic.
the multi -show narratives, you know, because all the things we're talking about now, they still feel like individual videos that are built into a show format. That has to do with the platform too. The platform is not set up to bring you from episode to episode.
It's set up to send you the next thing they think you will find the most satisfactory. Yes. But I think also on that point, it's like, I do still, there is still a place for creators who just make incredible individual videos.
I think Red Bull is an example where I don't think there's like the Red Bull show. It's just like, rebel are known for doing these incredible like human defying like you know spectacles and you know feats and i don't i wouldn't sort of say oh we're going to make that into a you know show as much as it's like well almost because we have the opportunity to do that because we can break through because in that placement on tv where there's two videos like there's a high chance maybe we're gonna have to get there for a lot of viewers i think it's still a great opportunity for creators that can do that to still focus on individual videos but i think it's interesting is maybe like you know that video has 8 million views which is like insane but maybe a bit unrealistic to think about like you know a dog channel getting 25 30 million views every video like so it's kind of their their way of being able to build something strong with momentum is maybe maybe a show like that's not 20 million views every time but maybe it's like two or three million views an episode do you think there's a future where i open up youtube on my tv and instead of
titles and thumbnails for singular videos. They're all titles of shows and thumbnails for shows. Similar to a Netflix.
Yeah. What do you think? I could see it as a beta test that they try for certain people, but I think it may not be in their best interest because at the end of the day, they do just want you to find the next video that you find the most enjoyable, not the video that comes from...
the creator you might be watching in that moment. I think it would make sense to surface shows like that that you already watch, in my opinion. If they already know that you watch Challenge Accepted and there's a new episode, you know, I could see that kind of like...
being surfaced or displayed in that way. But YouTube has built its platform on the kind of re -organic discoverability of like, I think, although we're talking about how great shows can be, I think there's a counterpoint, which is like, does it become a little bit more gatekept then? It's like, these are the shows that already exist.
And like a new creator starting out, they kind of grow by coming up with a great individual idea. It's kind of the funnel kind of goes, you ideate lots, you come up with lots of ideas, you try lots of things, most of them fail. This thing works, you try it again.
Oh, now it's a format. And then over time, now it's a show. But if it's only shows being like displayed on TV in different places, like how do you find that initial like testing ground where you're like almost pilots?
Yeah, I believe the beauty of YouTube is being there for the rise. The, you know, watching Jimmy when he has far less subscribers and he's making Minecraft videos or watching Ryan when he's doing commentary videos or Michelle when she leaves BuzzFeed and just starts experimenting, even for our audience who... has been through the many waves of us and now gets to have a different lens with what we...
Yeah. I like the fact that one channel that I love that I think does as well is Chris Williamson and Modern Wisdom. Modern Wisdom is a show on his channel.
It's a podcast that he hosts. But then occasionally he'll do a vlog. And it's just like...
And they do well. And they do really well. Yeah.
And I... That's like your... That's our video.
Right. That's this again. Right.
There's an amazing graph that Nielsen put out. about the most watched shows from 2020 to 2025. Mostly all of those shows were not produced in 2025, which is incredible.
But one of those shows is The Office that's been off the air for 13 years. And as we see creators come to TV, like The Office is one of those shows that has permission. You get on an airplane, you open up what they have, and you're in a paralysis of choice.
Like The Office is probably what you're going to watch. And I think a lot about... How do you create that?
I think on YouTube, one of the very few channels that has that is Good Mythical Morning. Comfort watching, trust, 3 ,000 episodes of one show, permission. That to me is like a very impressive feat.
But it's not to say it's the only path. It's just like when I think about longevity and brand building, I think a lot about The Office. That is wild when you think about like...
If I was to get on an airplane and just think about the maybe four or five shows that I would be looking for, you know, the original UK office came out in 2001. Yeah. You know, the US office, Parks and Recreation.
These are, yeah, they're sort of like brands that have been around and you just have that comfort of like, I know this is going to be good. Yeah. Yeah.
Maybe that's what YouTube needs. You know, we have this situation where... You go onto YouTube and you don't get that feeling of, I know this is going to be good.
You get this like crazy discoverability, which is why we all love it. And it's why we're all sitting here is because of the YouTube algorithms discoverability, being able to put us in front of people, which is crazy, like 118 ,000 people, like, you know. But I think maybe the difference is you're not getting that like comfortable, like I know what I'm getting.
This is the thing I want to watch that you get with like a series and a brand that has been built over time. So maybe the future is a mixture of both. I'm curious if you could leave us with like some formats or like a list of formats that you know is working on YouTube right now.
This is a format that's been going for YouTube like 100 years of X. We sat down with a YouTube channel that we absolutely love called Speed. They did 100 years of camping gear.
Are there certain frameworks and formats that you're seeing right now that are just kind of, these are the ones that are working? Every. Every.
So every something. So going back to this creator here. This creator, obviously, I've given a bit of backstory on him being a very small channel at the start of last year and now has over 175 ,000 subscribers.
He's told me himself, he's making six figures and getting to travel the world in the space of like a year, which is amazing. He's got had this format, which is like, you know, atheist goes to Christian church, you know, Christian goes to mosque for the first time. He has this like really interesting, like exploring different religions and having that contrast as a format.
Another format. he has had a lot of success with is every. So I went to every Christian denomination church.
I went to every insert thing. I've seen that appearing a lot on YouTube over the last few months, like doing everything. I bought every robot vacuum.
Here's the best. I read every self -help book. here's the seven most important lessons.
I think every is a really interesting format that I'm seeing out there. And it's funny because like when people think about that, they go like, people take things too literally, too literally. Like they're like, I can't read every self -help book.
I can't read every business book. It's like, you read a lot, you know, to the point where it's basically every, right? I just thought of a funny title.
I watched every YouTube video here at the four best. It's just kind of funny. Like, because it's ridiculous.
Totally unbelievable. It's totally unbelievable. But it is still interesting.
You're like. Okay, you watched a lot of videos. What are the formats?
Exactly, yeah. Any other formats that you're seeing working? It's a classic format that has been around a while, but like testing unique products.
I watched a video recently, I can't remember the exact title, but it was like, I bought every accessory for a Tesla or something like that. And it's just like testing all these different formats. There are these different accessories.
The other thing I've seen is like the level thing with the different colors where it's like every level of blank. Yeah, that's a good one. That's been one that has been.
And it's every again. It's every again. You're right.
Wow. Interesting. Why do you think that is?
What's the psychology behind why? You know, it's just like a level of effort that I'm not going to make as a viewer. It's a big curiosity gap.
Yeah. I'm not going to go out and read every self -help book or buy every camera or do all this. But someone did a pretty good job at least.
I'll check it out. And I also think it's even tying back into our very start of this episode where we talk about TV and length. It's like every just feels whole.
It feels like very, you know, expansive. It's going to cover a lot of things. It's a big thing, you know.
Comprehensive. Yeah. Yeah.
Comprehensive. So when you look at like, even the, you know, the videos I'm seeing work really well in like education for education issues, a lot of it is that thing of like, you know, my entire playbook or I've made, you know, we made this video with the creator Ramit Sethi last year and it was like, I've made millions of people rich.
Here's my entire playbook. was the title and the thumbnail. And it's like, it just feels like you're getting this big, expansive, whole thing.
That was kind of brought on by like the Hermosi, Simon Squibb, like all of my business knowledge in 47 minutes, right? 15 years of, and we did something similar. We did, yeah, but that's really interesting.
And that video, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that video probably started, okay, kind of slow. And then over time, just - It is a steady grower. It spans like, for you guys, like - over a decade, right?
It's like so much of your knowledge curated. There was another really interesting video. Someone who went to the location of the Windows desktop screensaver.
That's very funny. Oh, I saw that. That's very good.
There's a few reasons why I like this video because first of all, the thumbnail is not anything spectacular. I don't know exactly how to name this format, but there's something very interesting about this because what does it tap into? It's like...
It is a little bit of a spectacle. It's like a real thing. Like this guy's going to go travel to this place.
That's really interesting. It's also kind of nostalgic. You know, it's also a question that we've always posed to ourselves.
Like, what is that? That was such an interesting video because the first two or three minutes, he's just like figuring out where it is. Yeah, I think also the suggestion, what you just said about the suggestion of something comprehensive and complete is a really important one.
Where it's like, in that video, I know the video ends once he travels to that place. That's also why building videos are really helpful. You know, I built this thing.
It's like, cool, the video ends when that thing is built. Yeah, speaking of, look at that. I mean, that's a crazy thumbnail.
Is that a real, how real is that? Because sometimes I look at this stuff, it's very satisfying, but I'm like, how exaggerated is that versus how real is it? And maybe that's what draws the click for a lot of people.
Yeah, that's fair. 17 million views. A few things.
Yeah. You just need to know what it is. Similar to I bought every or I read every self -help book.
You're like, no, you didn't. But I'll see how far you got. 51 minutes.
This was made in 2020. You saw 51 minutes. You'd be like, what?
Now it doesn't feel that scary. It's like, oh, I'm watching on TV. It's actually a fantastic video.
So building a tiny office pod under my stairs. Yep. Tell me as a creator why I shouldn't use a more realistic version.
of what i actually built unless that is the real version his his build was actually pretty impressive like it's it's definitely like okay i gotta be honest i'm watching the video almost exact yeah really yes it's enhanced it's almost okay hold on because let's talk about this video because this is impressive this is a very unbelievable thumbnail yeah can you just talk about what you like about the thumbnail and the title like why this is so highly clickable because another thing about this channel man made is it's one year old i'm pretty sure this creator actually like applied to our cohort.
I might be in one of our cohorts coming up, which is hilarious because I'm like, you just did it. But the thing to me about this is like, I mean, first of all, just the shapes, like the triangular shape and then the stairs. I think that already is just like visually satisfying.
Whenever there's something we really need to focus on, I love when we have some open space. It's so interesting. I sometimes think about how could a thumbnail be done wrong?
I think if this like... and end of the sort of like room was at the very end of the thumbnail. I think you don't look at it and see it as like this thing that's been placed in someone's stairs.
It just looks more like, oh, it's just a cool room. I think if that wasn't there, I think this video would have three minute views instead of 17 minute views. And it's like such a tiny design choice, having that little space.
The person walking up the stairs, I bet you anything in his first draft of this thumbnail, that person wasn't there. And then he was like, eh, maybe I'll put someone walking up the stairs. And then it really creates that feeling of like, like that person doesn't look like they know he's there.
And I think that helps a lot as well. And then just the colors. I mean, the little details, like, I don't know.
I don't even know what this yellow thing is, but just that little yellow and then the warmness. And one thing I would say with this format, I think is really interesting as well as like, you know, kids content on YouTube or content that's made for like, you know, a younger audience. Like that's kind of honestly a bulk of YouTube these days.
Like there's so much. content out there for kids. A lot of creators just realize that the biggest demographic of people who watch the most.
They have the most available time. Yep. Our kids, the most available time.
So they end up catering for that. But the interesting thing about this is it's been a huge trend in the, in the kind of more kind of like kids, like early teen space to make these like secret rooms. I built a secret room.
This is doing it, but I think this is done in a way that we could watch. It's more for us. So it's like taking that format.
And I think that's the thing, like, you know, I've always kind of critiqued this mindset of like creators who think they're too good for like, you know, this kid's content stuff. And they're like, oh, you know, that's terrible. I would never make this.
There's still things to be learned from it. You know, there's still, you can still look and say, well, what would this look like if we age it up? Like, I always think, you know, I remember someone really like critiquing Mr.
Beast on Twitter one time, like, you know, people seem to love to do. And they were just like, look at this. Like, who would watch this?
I'm like, that's like me as a nearly 30 -year -old man. Like, you know, am I going to turn on Nickelodeon and be like, look at this. Look at this.
Who would watch this, you know? Whereas I like to go like, look at this. What happens if we try to make this for guys in their 20s and 30s?
Right. Yeah. Because I'm like, yeah, I want to watch that.
That looks cool. This is the first frame. Well done.
Yeah. But look at that open space that he created, right? Touche.
I'm building a tiny office under my stairs because I desperately need it if I'm going to get any work done in my crazy house. I'll be revealing the final project to ex -Pittsburgh stealer and famous YouTube woodworker John Malecki, and I've got a feeling that somehow I'm going to mess this up. I messed up big time.
What an incredible intro that was. That was everything that I did not expect. Well, I think that's what's great about it is it confirms the click.
Yes, this is exactly the video that the thumbnail said it was going to be. But what you didn't know and didn't expect to get was that I'm going to be revealing this to a woodworker who's really an expert and a celebrity. Yeah.
And then he gives you the personality. He makes it personal immediately with that personality of, I'm definitely going to mess this up. cut to real time.
I messed it up. That's 16 seconds. I mean, that is, that's like perfect YouTube.
And the thing, right? So it's a 51 minute video, but the intro is 16 seconds. I said this earlier in the episode where people are always just so like extreme, like it's black, it's white.
It's, you know, very like rip the bandaid off. It's, you know, but people will start saying, well, now you can go slower on YouTube. You can go longer.
And it's like, well, you can still take some of the lessons that made the, you know. retention editing era of four or five years ago is still special. You can still capitalize on the first 15 seconds as you should and then let it breathe.
This reminds me a lot of that birdwatching Doc Lister's that once I understood the personality of it, I was so down to watch it for a long time. And I think here, now that I know this guy's personality, I'm so down to watch 50 minutes of his personality.
Yeah, giving someone a glimpse of your personality in the first 15 seconds is so important. So important. Like the first time I realized that in that Lister's doc, they made a really dry joke.
Yes. And it was like so deadpan. And I went to myself, I was like, huh.
I was like, I'm in. Because I'm waiting for the next one of that. This here would be my older brother, Quentin.
And last year he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of early onset birdwatcher. Yeah, it's amazing. Wow.
This is a fantastic video. Insane. What are you seeing in the world of AI?
What's happening with AI on YouTube? I saw a recent data that YouTube shared that 92 % of creators are using AI in their workflow. I guess it's not that surprising, but...
It is crazy that it's almost everyone. Yeah. I would assume that if you extrapolate that to like human beings and their workflow, it'd be around the same.
Do you think like working humans that over 90 %? I mean, maybe we're, I think we're potentially in a bit of a bubble with what we do, but yeah, I would assume at least, you know, you say you use AI and workflow. And I think people think about like generative video potentially, but there's just so many different entry points, whether it's just like research, workshopping a title, there's so many different ways to engage with it.
Our clients are, you know, we're using it in different ways where, whether it's researching, like helping produce videos. Like the generative like video is not something that I have felt like I've got to the level at yet that I would incorporate it in video apart from using it for like motion graphics or B -roll or stuff like that.
Thumbnails though, like AI enhanced thumbnails. You're not, you know, doing anything crazy. You're just sort of taking what was in the video and using AI to create something special.
Like I've got a thumbnail here. A client we signed a couple of years ago, and this was our big breakout video with him, 19 million views, private tour of an Indian billionaire's secret wildlife rescue center. That thumbnail, you know, it's based on what happened in the video.
There's two tigers in the video. There's, you know, the monkey, the hummingbirds, everything is in the video, but it is heavily enhanced with AI. And that was one of the most viral videos last December, about nearly 20 million views on a video.
And that is an AI enhanced thumbnail. To me. that's one end of the spectrum.
And that like, that is just a reality to me. That's like a new tool. Yeah.
It's like when Photoshop came around and magazines were around, people would be like, that's so Photoshopped. It's the equivalent here. Like that's very AI, but we accept it.
It's a design tool. It has implications on workflow, but like largely I think on YouTube, that's accepted. There's a few other elements of AI that are happening, which comes to the beauty of what.
social has been historically has been like, that's a real person telling me something. So I saw, I think it was one of the head of product at Instagram. I don't know if you saw this.
Adam Masseri's post. Yeah. It was about like how in the future, it's just going to be easier to identify something as human.
Yes. As opposed to AI. And that, maybe that was the first time I was like, whoa, like that, that's crazy.
That's not one of the heads of products. That's the head of Instagram. That's the head of Instagram.
Yeah. So like, he's being definitive there saying. You know, what made creators great was authenticity, but authenticity can now be manufactured.
Scary. The answer, which I still don't have yet, and I want to have, and maybe you can help with this is, well, then what does it mean to signify something as human? If it's easier to do that, how do you do that?
What are the ways to do that? Because it's not lo -fi, DIY. It's not, because that's going to be replicated too.
It already has been. What is it? To me, it's like, there's some things that are moats that are very hard to like, that are harder for AI to cross, right?
And I think, you know, the obvious answer would be like, you know, what makes you human? Like what, the uniqueness about you, but ultimately AI can create that narrative for themselves, you know, really easily. Sometimes it's like access.
For example, like this video that's still on the table right in front of us here. This is the first time. anyone's ever taken a YouTube camera into the world's biggest wildlife sanctuary in India.
It's called Vantara. AI doesn't have that because it doesn't know what's there. So there's something to the fact that this is a video where someone's actually going and doing something.
I think about that even with one of our brand clients, the Philadelphia Eagles. I know this might sound like a tangent, but... Ultimately, that is Jordan Maeda, the incredible football player.
I mean, I guess AI can create a model of him, but it's not him. We have access to him and we can make that in a video. It almost feels like we're competing in unfair advantages.
What are unfair advantages we still have as humans over AI? We can go do something. We can walk to something and shoot something.
We can have access to something that AI still can't have. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little worrying. moat right now is brand.
And again, we keep coming back to that. It's like brand and permission. And then it is just like having honest discussions about what you're trying to say.
Because again, like I said, on YouTube and on social, everything you think you should make is going to get made, right? Like everything that you and I could be like, that would be a strategically a good video. It will probably get made already.
So then if that's already made, what's the other thing to make? What do I actually want to make? let's think about the channels that we think have been affected by AI and not necessarily generative video, but like actually just AI as a, you know, whether it's chat, you know, Claude, whatever.
I think like the sort of channels that maybe you're feeling that a little bit are the kind of like how -tos, you know, five productivity tips. It's not really a video you see these days. You know, I see a video which is like how I, you know, transform my entire life to be the most productive person in human history or something.
You know, it's like, well, why does that have... 500 ,000 views in the video with five productivity tips is five. It's because that's a unique person talking about their perspective, their experience.
Even someone like Ali Abdaal, right? I bet you if you look at Ali Abdaal's videos now and compare it to 2020, 2021, I think like there's been probably some shifts towards just like leaning into like, what can only I say? His experience, his perspective.
Yeah. I always think that like, what? Can I say that others can't?
Like, what can I like cover that others can't? There's a study done around the premise of AI slop, you know, and essentially suggesting that about 20 % of videos fed to a new YouTube user are what you'd consider slop. One of the most prominent channels is a channel from India called Bandar Upna Dost.
I don't know if you've seen some of the views on this. I've seen this. You've seen this?
Yeah. I mean, these are unbelievable views. All this to say, space is getting limited.
I think. Or is it ever expanding? Like, is YouTube this ever -expanding environment where there's actually just more and more room than we think?
Because a lot of the videos you've shown me, I've never seen. But they have, like, 20 million views or 8 million views. I've never even seen the thumbnail.
So is it that, like, YouTube actually just continuously has more and more space for new creators? Or is it that, like, we have to get more competitive? So the play is growing.
The data backs us up. There's more viewership on YouTube now than there was in 2019. I think the AI's threat to me is just the volume and the speed at which it can create.
And I think any algorithm that is like not very sophisticated struggles with that. So I think the YouTube algorithm is very sophisticated. But if I was to say which is more sophisticated, the long form algorithm, the short form algorithm, I think the long form algorithm is much more sophisticated.
It's been around for longer. You know, there's more inputs. There's more like, you know.
tweaking because it's been around, you know, the recommendation system came into play and I think 2011 or something or 2010. So where shorts came out in 2022 or 23, I think shorts has a harder time like filtering and ranking. I think it's good.
It's still like a good algorithm, but I think that's why, I don't know. I'll see more random shorts. I didn't like that.
I'm like, how did that get here? Then like on YouTube long form, because it still feels like stronger and more curated. So the thing I worry about is like, if there can be such a big volume of content made, does that.
you know, affect those algorithms that aren't as sophisticated. With the long -form audience, I think if, you know, if you told me, I don't know how many videos get uploaded a year, I should know that, but let's just say it's like... Well, it's 20 million a day.
20 million a day. I don't know how... Multiply that by, you know, it's 2 billion basically.
Multiply that by 365. Yeah, it's a lot. So there's 20 million a day, right?
I think if you told me that that's going to increase to 60 million with AI, I don't really think that affects these sort of videos. I don't really think that affects my clients. I don't think that really affects...
the top YouTube content out there. Because to me, again, YouTube's algorithm, it's a ranking algorithm. It doesn't really matter.
It doesn't matter how much you feed into a ranking algorithm. It is feeding out the outputs of the 20, 30, 40, 50 videos that are going to be consumed by viewers, that are right for viewers. In theory, it could be 100 million videos uploaded a day.
And if 80 million of them are AI slop, that's the question though. If they get good enough where we're like, wow, it's not the novelty. These are actually really good long form videos.
Then I get concerned, but I don't think it's going to affect things immediately, but it's, you know, it feels like we're on an iceberg that's shifting around a little bit. To me, it's similar to the TV conversation that it's not just algorithmic curation that's going to need to happen. There's going to be, need to be some level of editorial curation that happens on YouTube, I think.
If we get to 80 million videos a day, which actually might come quicker than we think, right? Like if we're at 20 million right now with what we just saw with AI video, we might get to 100 million videos a day very quickly. That then brings up the question of curation.
How does that word feel to you as a YouTuber? I love it. You love it?
I think curation is a great thing that happens. I think curators and tastemakers have always been... high value for us in culture.
Can I make the kind of counter argument? Please. One of the things that made YouTube so special is the no curation, the no gatekeepers, the wild west of like, what is getting clicked on and what is get, like, I always think that's so interesting where like, I used to say like, the YouTube algorithm doesn't care who your dad is.
And that's not to talk down on anyone that's, you know, made a career in other areas. But like, I think naturally there's a lot of, there's a lot of like layers to it. It's like, this person likes it, puts it on, like, There was, I think his name was David Peel.
I'm maybe getting his name wrong, but there was a radio host in the UK in like the 70s and 80s. And like, if you think about all the biggest bands from like that period of UK music and, you know, the Smiths, Joy Division, all these different bands, he just found their demo tape and was like, wow, I'm putting this on. And like, he birthed so many, you know, musicians, which I think is amazing, but he probably missed lots.
You know, he probably was like, oh, I missed that one. That would have been great. And I think that...
The great thing about algorithms is they are better at not missing things. But when you put so much volume in where it's 100 million, yeah, it might get quite difficult even for an algorithm to... Yeah, and my career is a result of the lack of curation, which I love.
But I think it's cyclical, that when you get to that much volume, there has to come back a level of curation. What do you think? I'm torn.
I agree with you that it's a beautiful thing, that it doesn't matter. who you are. If you make something good, it has the opportunity to be seen.
I don't think YouTube will lose that, though, even amidst curation. Those aren't mutually exclusive. Yeah, I don't think they're mutually exclusive.
I think it's fine. Spotify, we know, has editorial curation. And actually, I think that's different.
I think that's entirely editorial. A lot of editorial, yeah. But I don't think it's mutually exclusive.
It goes back to almost like the thing we talked about, which shows versus individual videos. They don't have to be mutually exclusive. Both can work in the future.
Yeah. But maybe historically only one has worked, which is individual videos. And we're entering that new dawn.
Well, Paddy, thank you for coming on. I love that this is an annual thing. Good to have you back.
The only prediction that I feel like came true from last year is that we all still do YouTube, which is great. It's still a thing. People still watch it.
It's getting bigger and bigger. Yep. More people are creating for YouTube.
Hopefully this continues to be an annual thing and we don't get all replaced in the next year. That's a good point. All right.
See ya.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Paddy Galloway comes back to Colin and Samir with the graphs: TV has quietly become the biggest device type for his biggest clients, and it's rewriting what a good YouTube video even looks like.
Frameworks
Named ideas worth stealing.
43:56concept
The "Every" Format
Every Christian denomination church
Every robot vacuum
Every self-help book
Every accessory for a Tesla
A video that promises to cover every version of a category, taking on a level of effort the viewer isn't willing to do themselves.
Steal forAny list-based content where comprehensiveness itself is the hook, e.g. a swipe file, a tool roundup, or a review series.
33:51model
Format-to-show pipeline
Ideate many formats and try lots of things
One format works, repeat it once or twice
Add branding: an intro, a logo, a title graphic, a consistent premise
It becomes a show with appointment viewing
Paddy's description of how successful channels evolve from a one-off idea into a named, brandable show, framed as a slow natural evolution rather than a big relaunch.
Steal forAny creator with one video format that's worked more than once and is deciding whether to formalize it into a recurring series.
20:01concept
The striker analogy for algorithm anxiety
A striker who scores five or six games in a row
A game where he doesn't score but still plays well
You don't bench him after one scoreless game
A sports analogy for why one underperforming video shouldn't be treated as proof the algorithm is punishing a creator, since a 'quiet' video can still do invisible relationship-building work.
Steal forReframing how a creator or team reacts internally to one video underperforming.
CTA Breakdown
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
1:05:10next-video
“Hopefully this continues to be an annual thing and we don't get all replaced in the next year.”
A soft, relationship-based sign-off rather than a hard subscribe ask, inviting Paddy back as a recurring annual guest.
Add Modern Creator as a preferred source and Google shows you more of our breakdowns in Search, Top Stories, and AI Overviews. It only changes what you see, and you can undo it in your Google settings anytime.
Add to Preferred SourcesOpens your Google source preferences with us pre-loaded. Tick the box and you're done.
A strategist who works with 11 creators a week explains why algorithm exploits are dead, why click-through rate is overrated, and the five-step framework he uses to decide which videos are worth making.
A two-hour-plus studio interview with YouTube strategist Jake Bryant that climbs the view ladder one level at a time, from zero views to ten million per upload.
A 5-hour-a-week system that treats YouTube as a lead-generation machine instead of a content treadmill — $76,000 per video from a $30 setup, no virality required.
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