Advanced Television

German, French YouTube beating UK

January 2, 2014

By Chris Forrester

youtubeappYouTube’s 46 generic channels are doing better in Germany and France than those being viewed in the UK. A study by IHS Electronics & Media over the past year states that the German and French offering gathered an average of 14 million views, while the UK offering tempted just 11 million views.

However, IHS suggests some valid reasons. The top three individual channels are non-English language. It could also be hat UK web-viewers are more likely to search out US channels. Another fact is that the German and French pool of content is much less than that available in the English language, and consequently the German and French material has a better chance of being discovered by would-be viewers.

IHS says that comedy, factual and sports channels are well represented although auto-based channels get the largest number of views per channel.

YouTube gave seed funding a year ago for its first batch of 46 channels, and some of those investments are winning considerable support. Germany’s ‘Motorvision’ for example, has achieved 69 million views, up 21 million y-o-y. Top viewed UK channel is ‘BBC Earth’ which won 40 million views, up 18 million y-o-y. Top French channel is ‘Studio Bagel’ with 63 million, all achieved within the last year.

These channels are not scheduled as 24-hour services, but offer viewers a mosaic of on-demand material that is refreshed regularly.

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