YouTube Could Be Worth $550 Billion as Analyst Crowns Platform 'New King of All Media' (thewrap.com) 42
MoffettNathanson has crowned YouTube the "New King of All Media" as the Alphabet-owned video platform has become a major force in Hollywood, dominating time spent watching TV. From a report: The firm estimates that YouTube as a standalone business could be worth as much as $550 billion -- or nearly 30% of the tech giant's current valuation. The figure is based on the firm's analysis of enterprise value as a multiple of revenue in 2024 for Netflix (10.5x revenue), Meta (8.8x), Roku (2.4x), Warner Bros. Discovery (1.4x), Fox (1.3x) and Disney (1.3x).
In 2024, YouTube was the second-largest media company by revenue at $54.2 billion, trailing behind only Disney. However, the MoffettNathanson analysts predict YouTube will take the top spot in 2025, becoming a leader in both engagement and revenue. "YouTube has the potential to become the central aggregator for all things professional video, positioning itself to capture a share of the $85 billion consumer Pay TV market and the ~$30 billion streaming ex. Netflix market in the U.S.," they wrote in a Monday research note. "On monetization, when comparing YouTube's massive TV screen engagement to its estimated TV revenue, it remains significantly under-monetized relative to its scaled reach and differentiated offering. This signals a substantial runway for improving its monetization strategy."
In 2024, YouTube was the second-largest media company by revenue at $54.2 billion, trailing behind only Disney. However, the MoffettNathanson analysts predict YouTube will take the top spot in 2025, becoming a leader in both engagement and revenue. "YouTube has the potential to become the central aggregator for all things professional video, positioning itself to capture a share of the $85 billion consumer Pay TV market and the ~$30 billion streaming ex. Netflix market in the U.S.," they wrote in a Monday research note. "On monetization, when comparing YouTube's massive TV screen engagement to its estimated TV revenue, it remains significantly under-monetized relative to its scaled reach and differentiated offering. This signals a substantial runway for improving its monetization strategy."
The Network Effect can be a b**** (Score:5, Funny)
Oh great, yet another #%@^$ monopoly. Ads are already increasing.
I was hoping Bing Videos would give them competition, but it's not working out. (Yes, I hate MS, but that's not a reason to have another monopoly.)
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To be fair, it's really difficult to turn video hosting for every idiot with a smartphone camera into a profitable endeavor unless you happen to also be an advertising company. Really, a lot of user generated content hosting has this same problem. Most of us will use it for free, but the second you expect us to open our wallets to see photos of our friends' meals and clickbait videos about "this one weird trick to clean your toilet", forget it, we're out.
Re: The Network Effect can be a b**** (Score:3)
Yes, the ads are an instant deterrent for me also. Perhaps this problem calls for decentralized/crowdsourced CDN where users allocate some space and bandwidth to the content, sort of like torrents, but more user friendly. Something like that is likely in existence already, but perhaps not in wide use. It sure would be nice to get rid of centralized control for the most popular video site.
Some technical obstacles to this remain, such as limited upstream bandwidth for many ISPs, especially in the US, anachron
Re: The Network Effect can be a b**** (Score:1)
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Could you please name it ?
If by web3, it means something tied to Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency, I am afraid I wouldn't be using it to publish my content.
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YouTube Premium is the best 14 dollars I spend every month. The large channels are better content and production quality than just about everything from the major media players, and even some small channels made by one person with a phone camera provide unique and interesting content that I could never find anywhere else. I haven't turned my TV on in years.
I drank the cool aid. I pay for YouTube so I don't have to watch ads and it's worth every penny.
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The average technical acumen of slashdot users has gone WAY downhill, huh?
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I am one of those small content producers. My channel is very niche and only has a triple digit number of subscribers after nearly 20 years. I produce baroque music videos on harpsichord and piano, and the phone camera on a tripod happens to be the best 4K video camera I own. I use semi-professional audio gear. The quality was good enough to get me noticed by a movie producer and get me my first IMDB credit for music.
I still want to move my content off Youtube the moment there is a viable decentralized solu
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It sure would be nice to get rid of centralized control for the most popular video site.
I think most peopel when approached with this would agree with it, the hard part isn't just the network effect of where everyone is putting content but really YouTube itself works really smoothly most of the time. The video player has lot's of options and playback just works, other video sites have improved but none of the commercial alternatives in my opinion work as well. It's what to be expected from the story of the world largest media site but still, bigger platforms have fucked up the basic product
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I didn't follow the YouTube ad-pocalypse. But I know the recommendation algorithm changes sometimes wreak havoc with the lives of all those creators who don't "work for Youtube". Just because Alphabet/Google /Youtube might have backtracked on something, doesn't mean they won't do something objectionable later on. It's their servers and their bandwidth, after all. I just don't believe in benevolent dictators.
The content isn't Youtube's, though. It belongs to the creators, which also have the right to walk. I
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Sure but that's pretty much the same for all entertainment if you want to expand reach. If you are an author you have to deal with an editor and a publisher, if you are a musicians you have a record label, if you a re filmmaker you have a studio and producers. If you are an online content creator you have to work with youTube or Twitch or whoever you want to use to expand your reach. You can self host and self promote but everyone is on Youtube because Youtube has huge potential reach.
So many things in
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I'm not asking for anything free, but for a viable alternative to Youtube. The problem is that it has so much market share. It is really an anti-trust issue at this point, IMO. Creators who make a living from their content should have some realistic alternatives to Youtube to choose from, and they currently don't. I don't think Twitch currently is a viable alternative to Youtube for these creators. There are many different metrics you can use to compare these sites - number of creators, number of viewers, n
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I am not saying you were asking for free anything and I listed Twitch as comparison as I agree they don't compete, YouTube tried to break into livestreaming and lost, pretty badly actually to Twitch, so YouTube clearly cannot dominate every space they want.
YouTube is a bit like Steam; Yes they are dominant in their position but did they do anything particularly anti-competitive (Google itself aside) or did they come to dominate because they offer a very compelling product and network effects would say that
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You are basically saying that we should trust the free market and let new competitors appear, compete, and eat Youtube's market share. That would be reasonable if video sharing was an emerging market. But Youtube is so dominant now that it is very difficult for anyone to compete effectively. Tiktok appears to be the most serious one at this time. It is difficult to entangle oneself from Facebook, Whatsapp, Youtube due to the network effect, unless one wants to live as a hermit. A different set of rules appl
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YouTube is mostly not about your friend's videos, it's mostly about people creating professional and semi-professional content for the site.
There is a lot of good stuff on there that you can't get anywhere else. To pick a random example, one of my favourite channels is Adrian's Digital Basement, where he mostly fixes old computer hardware. You get to see him go through the diagnostic and repair process in a way that wouldn't be well conveyed in text, and the videos are very informative for people looking to
That Howard Stern line again (Score:4, Informative)
I still remember the show where he was talking about people crowning themselves "The King of Pop" and the "King of whatever", and he decided to be the "King of all Media" , and kept calling himself that until it stuck.
And now it's Yutube . What a long strange trip.
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Well, ever since he locked himself behind the paywall of satellite radio, Howard Stern has stopped being relevant. Might as well pass on the crown.
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I still remember when Emmanuel Goldstein crowned himself King of the Internet on WBAI. Not sure if he still wants that title...
King Of All Media? (Score:1)
Whatever happened to Howard Stern?
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The internet happened. Stern seems tame by comparison to what you can find online.
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I was a huge Stern fan and listener for many years. He didn't get out-shocked by the internet, he went more mainstream and mellowed out. Stern fans call this era "Hollywood Howard" where he gets big names and kisses their ass more than ask uncomfortable questions. Plus he's literally 71 years old now, dude's old.
As for the title "King of All Media", this article is wrong to use it as it doesn't apply. Howard declared himself King of All Media because he was popular on radio, TV, and the internet. This artic
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Yeah the whole genre of talk-radio shock-jock got eaten up by the internet, definitely an 80's to 00's phenomenon and Stern was smart enough to see it coming, first and the last.
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According to the internet, SiriusXM is paying him $120 million dollars a year. Maybe not the "King" but certainly good money if you can get it. I wouldn't mind it.
meta: maybe hold it to half a dozen stories a day? (Score:2)
idk what consensus on this is if any, but i'd rather fewer, more curated stories on the main feed.
With the thought that there might be some interesting discussion to read or be had about some of them. With the current/recent rate it seems the large majority scroll off w/o much said.
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Interesting. I hadn't heard of it.
How much do i have to think about / worry about its "blockchain" and "P2P" underpinnings ?
Meanwhile, back in reality (Score:4, Funny)
YouTube is where ... (Score:3)
And they wonder why people scrape this stuff from the site?
YouTube or YouTube TV? (Score:3)
\o/ (Score:1)
$550B - awesome!! Finally, they can afford to implement nested comments \o/
To me, you tube is great, but... (Score:2)
...I realize that probably somewhere around 99% of it is crap
I pay for premium to avoid ads, and I am a minor content creator
I watch expert teachers, including Nobel winners teach science and tech
I watch expert craftspeople demonstrating and teaching their craft
I teach machining and glassworking
So far, I'm able to easily find the stuff I like and easily ignore the crap
I hope that I will be able to continue
If they start forcing unavoidable pop culture or "trending" crap, I will quit
MySpace (Score:2)
The demise of MySpace began soon after initiatives designed to bring revenue led to a mountain of ads. Often these ads were misleading or scammy. Or were just your annoying predatory credit card offers. On top of this, MySpace failed to build communities on their site, or support them in any meaningful way. This led to creators leaving the platform and the rest of the traffic followed.
The same fate is inevitable for YouTube. It simply isn't possible for it to be an enduring platform. The most fatal flaw in
Too little too late (Score:2)
2015 called. They want their headline back.
No, not "worth" (Score:2)
I deleted them from my bookmarks (Score:2)
After they banned my favorite creators for no real reason. I occasionally still watch some others on CrapTube now, but only targeted and only with manual input of the URL. And, of course, I run an ad blocker (Vivaldi integrated). If the ad blocker ever stops working, I am gone for good.
Time to tank it, folks. (Score:2)
Make it crater.
YouTube CEO also got a free speech award.. (Score:2)