For a while now, we’ve known that streaming was becoming the dominant way people watch TV; in 2025, streaming accounted for almost 45% of streaming, more than broadcast and cable viewership combined, according to Nielsen. And among streaming platforms, the most popular isn’t Netflix or HBO Max: it’s YouTube, the everything-streaming platform that’s been around for over 20 years now.
And despite the existence of other video platforms, it looks like YouTube’s dominance is only going to keep growing, especially if their newest strategy bears fruit.
YouTube teams up with BBC
Today: Doctor Who. Tomorrow: the world.
Credit: BBC
In January, the BBC revealed that it would start making shows for YouTube. We don’t know all the details about this deal yet, or exactly what kind of shows the BBC will make. According to them, it will be a mix of “entertainment, documentaries, children’s channels, news and sport.”
BBC already has plenty of YouTube channels, of course, with more than 15 million subscribers between them. But those channels are mainly used to promote TV shows the BBC is making and showing elsewhere, to show trailers and clips. The idea of the BBC actually making shows directly for YouTube is a step beyond what any other legacy media organization has done.
The BBC hopes that this new content will help lead people to some of the organization’s proprietary platforms like BBC iPlayer, and it probably will…but in the long run, it feels like YouTube will get more out of this deal than BBC. BBC needs to put shows on YouTube because it knows that YouTube is where everybody is watching video content, but YouTube is already dominating and could get along fine without BBC’s help. That said, partnering with such a huge legacy media organization could help YouTube plug one of the few big programming gaps it has left.
Scripted TV is YouTube’s final frontier
BBC could help them chart it
The truth is that YouTube has already taken over a lot of what used to be the province of network and cable TV. Latenight talk shows used to be a fixture of network television, but these days it’s more likely to watch clips of Jimmy Kimmel Live! or The Tonight Show the next day on YouTube rather than watch the actual episodes live. And for plenty of people even that isn’t necessary; they can just go to their favorite commentary channel if they want to hear someone weigh in on the news of the day.
YouTube is also making inroads into live spots and other events. It pays $2 billion every year to the NFL $2 for NFL Sunday Ticket, a subscription service that allows fans to watch Sunday afternoon NFL games not shown on local broadcasts in their area. Recently it came out that, beginning in 2029, the Academy Awards will stream exclusively on YouTube, rather than one of the broadcast networks or even one of the big subscription services like Hulu or Netflix. Live events were one of the few ways that network TV could still attract people, but the Oscars have to go where the people are, and they’re on YouTube.
But one area YouTube hasn’t been able to take over is scripted TV. They haven’t produced high-quality miniseries of the kind that HBO regularly cranks out. They haven’t had a scripted phenomenon like Stranger Things, the end of which left a hole in our hearts we’re still trying to fill. The economics of their business don’t really allow for it. HBO and Netflix give resources to creators to do stuff like build sets and hire actors, but the big names on YouTube are homegrown and do everything themselves. MrBeast is the most popular YouTuber alive, but when it came time to make his reality competition show Beast Games, he didn’t spend his own money and make it for YouTube; he pitched it to Amazon Prime Video, got funding, and made it there. The second season is airing right now.
YouTube is driven by the individual creators on the platform, and even if CEO Neal Mohan considers them “the new stars and studios” (as he put it in his annual letter to the YouTube community), there’s only so much they can do alone. But if YouTube makes deals with major legacy media organizations like BBC, that might not be a problem. BBC is the studio behind classic shows like Doctor Who, The Office, Sherlock, and many, MANY more over the course of its 100-plus-year history. We don’t know if BBC will actually make those kinds of shows for YouTube, but this deal represents a step in that direction, and if the experiment works, other legacy brands may have no choice but to follow.
The (potentially) terrifying future of YouTube
Is there any veering off this path?
Credit: Miguel Lagoa/Shutterstock
Right now, Netflix is trying to buy major legacy media studio Warner Bros. Discovery. There are lots of potential problems with that deal, including antitrust concerns. Netflix’s defense is that it needs to acquire a studio like WBD because otherwise it will get completely overrun by YouTube, which it considers its primary competition in the streaming world.
In a few years, that argument may look prophetic, because YouTube is growing at a rate where it may not to be able to avoid replacing most other options even if it wanted to. And once YouTube is the only game in town, it may be tempted to start charging for access, to throttle content, or otherwise do things that are good for its bottom line but bad for the users.
Related
Why I’ve Started Watching YouTube on My TV Instead of My Phone
Apparently, most viewers now watch YouTube this way.
Time to panic?
That said, with growth comes challenges. Right now, YouTube (along with TikTok and Meta) is defending itself in court against claims that it encourages addiction and harms the mental health of the children who use it. There are lots of way to keep YouTube from taking things to extremes, including, one hopes, responsible management. If YouTube’s takeover of TV is inevitable, I’d like it to at least happen in a way that doesn’t punish the people who use it, but that’s just one of many bridges we’ll have to cross when we get there.
