Is YouTube the new TV? How sports are monetizing the platform in 2026

0:29Hello everyone, welcome back to the next episode of Streamtime Sportsman. played your presentation that you gave setting you know the eight realities or the reality check for the sports industry i gave the scene setter for the media track where i talked quite a bit about youtube you know its penetration across the globe in terms of usage uh highlighting some of the different things like we're seeing with the bbc here in the uk but also reflecting on what youtube's doing in america given the fact they're now live streaming nfl games they're rumored to be getting more of those games with the espn nfl merger and some of those games now being available that YouTube is taking quite a big approach, multiple different layers across the ecosystem.

1:05And it seems even in a lot of the LinkedIn posts afterwards, lots of people were talking about YouTube. And I guess, Nick, maybe, you know, we talked about reality checks, going to throw you under the bus here, not a ton of prep on this. There is a lot of positivity about YouTube. Is there perhaps something maybe around YouTube that we need a reality check on? I would say, yes. I think there was a little bit of reality check from, depends on who you're listening to. I think my thing with it, like the reason I did the reality check stuff is that, I mean, everyone has a different experience going on social media and the different platforms that we consume content.

1:39But I get to conserve a lot of positivity around platforms like YouTube. And then when I talk to people in person who are doing it, it ain't all smooth sailing, shock. It's actually the challenge of getting the maximum value out of the effort that you can put into it is still tricky, particularly on the monetization side. And there's almost added pressure to produce high quality content. And what I mean by that is, if you're broadcasting sports live or non-live, the margins of what good looks like versus great is actually really quite small. You don't have to... The ratings of a sporting event live don't really change that much.

2:27unless the sporting experience is poor. But in terms of producing that, it's pretty easy to do once you get into the rhythm of production of it. But I think when you look at YouTube and social, particularly from sports lens and people who perhaps haven't historically had a lot of experience on those platforms, historically, you have to keep iterating a lot till you find that something that works for those platforms. So I think there's more pressure and exposure on those who are working on YouTube to keep iterating and improving the platform. And most people will tell you those algorithms on those platforms you need to be doing more just to get you get basically a bump up in visibility by just being more active on those platforms so it's different to say some other social media platforms where any one piece of content can just do well with youtube you have to keep grinding and out producing stuff every day on those platforms to keep your um algorithm rating higher at least that's what i hear anyway so obviously we'll perhaps talk to some youtube experts soon to get more insight on that or obviously we talked to bray bison who gave us some good insights there as well but it's tricky I think it's a lot trickier to get value and have a linear line to success basically on YouTube is basically what I'm trying to say.

3:34Yeah. Well, as you mentioned, I had the opportunity to speak to Martin Raphael, who's the director of audience development at Brave Bison. He gives a little bit of background as to who they are, but they are an official partner of YouTube. So they are someone that YouTube works with. And they really do focus on that intersection of working with rights holders, them being the agency, and then YouTube being the platform. They kind of see all different sides of that. And we, myself and Martin spoke specifically around the monetization models. YouTube has been rolling out some different things. Obviously, they've got their ad model, which runs as it does.

4:04But they've also been introducing new things such as the membership only model for content. They've also been introducing some pay-per-view models. all things that are kind of to your point trying to make youtube a more profitable platform to justify the roi that you're going to spend on it because i think to your point and one of the things martin's talked about is youtube does has to be created or treated as its own channel and i think that's one of the things that's even come up with something like the bbc moving to youtube is that's where audiences are going youtube is really kind of in some ways that the positive view could be viewed as the new tv and one of the other things martin and i spoke about is the amount of usage via connected TV is also changing the way I think people have to consider how content needs to be produced on YouTube because they do have the shorts model, which is helping with some of the monetization, but it is a completely different strategy and approach given how much people are now using connected TVs, which I think for me makes a ton of sense because I probably on my connected TV spend most of my time on YouTube.

5:00Whereas five years ago, it might've been on my desktop or it might've been on my phone. Just even the devices that you're using has completely changed. Some of the different monetization models or even how you go about producing content? Yeah, I do think it's tricky for a couple of reasons. Everyone will tell you, you need to create content for the platforms, not just you can't create one piece of content or work across them all. But that sounds great, and that's easy to say. But if you've got limited resources, you also need content that can work across all platforms. Otherwise, it does take a lot of work to create something dedicated and custom for each and every platform if you want to be successful on them.

5:36So there is that sort of tension point about yes you need to be bespoke for those platforms but also it does need to work on others if you want to maximize um the value of your resources going into creating content itself ultimately the the conundrum with um monetization is still around that the programmatic advertising angle on things is still just too low that's why they want to be talking about themselves as the new tv they want to drive cpms up with advertisers who've been spending so much money on broadcast and tv um because by raising cpms it'll make it more worthwhile for everyone to be producing content for youtube so at the moment sports has to make maximize the value out of youtube by the digital sponsor sponsorship related activations and activities like most people do like most content creators do if you're just leaning on programmatic alone you will not be maximizing the value that youtube brings to the table so there's a lot of work to go into it it's not like there's some sort of like secret um you know i don't want to say this do i say silver bullet again not sort of some some sort of silver bullets yeah secret source there's probably a better description on how you can just drive instant value but um with a lot of work it can have iterative impact but uh to what extent again is is up for discussion well me and martin do get into that so if you want to hear more about the different monetization models that YouTube is rolling out yet, then definitely listen to it.

7:03We talk about some of the different monetization models that exist, what's working, what's not working. How do you potentially drive people from YouTube to your own first party platforms? Because that is one of the shortcomings about YouTube that might be the reality check, Nick, is that, hey, it's great for eyeballs, but if you're trying to collect first party data that you might want to give off to sponsors or somebody else, like you are still lacking that. So is there a way to use YouTube as a way to drive people? Not too dissimilar to the conversation we have with TikTok and the affiliations that they were doing with DAZN.

7:30We talked about the question, you know, what's more important? Is it the format? Is it the person? Is it the content itself? Because, you know, we talked about it's not too dissimilar to your presentation where Erleon Holland has set up a YouTube channel, but his most popular content has nothing to do with football. And how do you solve that conundrum of what's actually most important there? There's lots of questions around those things about best uses. And I think ultimately what Martin comes with is there are things they know work well on YouTube, but there's also no blueprint that's going to work because authenticity we're learning these days is so important.

8:02There you go. The big word authenticity that you can't just go and copy someone else's playbook because it works well. If it doesn't fit your audience, your voice, there's only so much you can do to replicate stuff. It's not as simple as just, but that's the whole, that's the whole point of stream time, right? Nick, we talked to all these different OTT companies, streaming platforms, rights holders. None of them can do it the same way, but there are some things, maybe some things to, to maybe avoid, but like I said, Marta and I go through all that. And it's a really, I think, enlightening conversation for those that are trying to figure out what can you potentially earn from YouTube?

8:32What are some of the realities of what that's going to require, both resource and time behind it? But yeah, it's a really good conversation, Nick. And I think for anyone that's trying to grasp their head more around the realities of YouTube, it's a great conversation. Good. Well, I think we should probably do a little call out. If there's anyone that knows or anyone that wants to speak about their approach to YouTube what's working, what's not. We'd love to hear from you because I think we'd be keen to do a little bit more of a focus on over the next several months in the buildup to our media summit event, especially where YouTube will probably be a pretty important topic on the agenda again, I think for 2026.

9:10For sure. Well, everyone, I'm going to hand things over to my conversation with myself and Martin and we will catch you on the next episode of Streamtime Sports.

9:25Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the next episode of Streamtime Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the community lead. And today I'm joined by Martin Raffel, the director of audience development at Brave Bison. And today, Martin, we'll be talking about YouTube. Very good time to be talking about it. We're here at Sports Pro London today. It's been a topic multiple times. I'm going to speak about it later in my presentation. But when we talk about YouTube, before we kick things off a little bit, do you have a favorite non-sports YouTube channel that you watch? Yeah. So, I mean, I watch a lot of different things on YouTube, and sometimes you're fed stuff from the algorithm that they know you better than you know yourself.

9:59But I think Liam Brown, a guy that just walks. Nice. Okay, it's nice, relaxing content. If I've been watching sports content all day and analyzing sports content, what I want is something that's completely relaxing. And he does these long hikes, and you just hear the sound of nature, and it's nice and relaxing. So he's one of my favorites. Not the most notable name, but he's pretty good. It's really interesting because when I was on paternity, I discovered the Outdoor Boys. Oh, nice. And honestly, to your point, it was just so relaxing because there was no sponsorship. There's no ulterior motive.

10:30It was just a man enjoying his family, enjoying nature. So it's really interesting. You and I are sort of what we're looking at. We're sports people. We're not even trying to watch sports content on YouTube, despite that's what we're going to talk about later. But yeah, I really enjoyed the Outdoor Boys. Very relaxing, good-hearted, just family stuff. That's it. It's wholesome, isn't it? It's wholesome. As you say, there's no agenda, wholesome content, and you can relax late into the evening with some outdoor boys. Well, it wasn't always relaxing into the evening. Sometimes it's 3, 4 in the morning, just trying to stay awake because I was taking care of dad duties.

11:03Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the deal. Yeah, absolutely. So just in terms of setting the scene, let's talk a little bit about Brave Bison for those that maybe aren't aware. You guys are an officially recognized partner of YouTube, so us bringing you on here to talk about YouTube isn't just for no reason. you guys are recognized by YouTube as someone that can help people in this space. So for those perhaps that aren't familiar, just give a little bit of a rundown of the work that you guys do do. Yeah, I mean, Brave Bison as an entity, as a whole group, has changed a lot in the last two years. So probably my answer a couple of years ago would be very different than it is today in terms of kind of the services we provide as an organization.

11:35We've had acquisitions in the areas of, you know, influencer marketing and paid media and, of course, engaged digital partners of another sports agency that we acquired. So in terms of our remit and the services we can provide, that all feeds back into the core of what we do in my team, which is really develop YouTube channels and grow YouTube channels for governing bodies and big sporting organizations. And really that's across the key metrics of viewership, subscriber growth, and ultimately watch time and revenue. And I know we're going to talk about that a little bit more today. But really that comes down to the core services that we provide and content strategy being a real main one.

12:11are really answering the why, like why are you creating what you're creating on the platform? What is the purpose of it? Channel management, so best practice to make sure that the content sings on the platform, everything, you know, titling to thumbnails and publication and everything you need to do on a daily basis to make sure your videos are performing as well as they can. Rights management, massively important in sports and often actually a gateway when we're speaking to rights holders about why they want our services. They don't have that expertise in how to manage rights and protect the you know the rights of their broadcast partners as well and then production so producing content being out in the field uh capturing content on site but also creating stuff you know in studio and from uh from from the archive as well so a real whistle stop 30 000 foot capture of what we do but in a nutshell that's that's where we're at and one thing you did mention a little off piece now i've recently learned how much science goes into the art of creating a thumbnail oh yeah like can you can you quickly just like talk through that because i think that's probably something that i didn't realize how important it was to like the algorithm and performance oh yeah massively important i mean it's really important for click-through rate and also the the main thing that youtube are focusing on now and this is reflected in the a and b testing is that it's not just about the click-through rate but about the the watch time versus retention rate right so they're wanting people not only to click on your thumbnail but also to stay there for actually to reflect the the content that they're watching so obviously it's important to make sure you know the best practice is being followed making sure your thumbnails are engaging uh they're exciting that they often in sport what we what we know works well is when they show a reaction and emotion especially when it comes to you know if you're a winning moment of a golfer or uh someone winning a tennis championship you know you want that moment that will drive clicks and get people clicking.

13:57So obviously with A and B testing, that's really up the game in terms of what we can do. And so that adds a whole nother layer of not only A and B testing the thumbnail, but also the title and thumbnail combination, taking one out, having a control in there, like a control method to understand exactly what's making the difference when it comes to clickability for thumbnail. Honestly, it just really intrigued me like the science behind that. But I guess, again, just finally sort of setting the scene there, as you've kind of laid there, Brave Bison's isn't an interesting place in the intersection of sports, media, broadcast agencies, that whole space there.

14:34What have you noticed probably in the last five years as a trend in terms of the way YouTube is being viewed by the industry? Yeah, so I think there's clearly been platform changes, right? There's been a huge emphasis on YouTube Shorts. I mean, it's dating quite a while now, but of course, the monetization of YouTube Shorts has changed things a little bit. and so when you go to the home page now you're you know you're pretty pretty inundated with with youtube with short form content as well as the the video on demand stuff so that's a obviously a big change there um we've also seen the the huge increase in watch time on tv uh so before the pandemic it was around 20 we were seeing around 20 percent of of watch time on on the channels in our network came from tv devices uh nowadays it's it's you know 70 percent upwards and there's a bit of a chicken and egg going on there like people see that content on tv performance well but there's more opportunities to implement mid-roll and monetize at a higher level so they're creating content specifically for tv but that's like a massive shift in connected tv devices has been huge um and then of course new routes to monetization which we'll talk about in a little bit but um you know looking at membership options uh we're big in in the world of partner sold as well so providing additional value for our partners through selling to their headline sponsors.

15:49And then of course, like an increase in the growth of, you know, integrating merchandise and super chats and everything else that goes with it as well. Yeah. We'll talk about the monetization part next, but you brought up something that I think is really interesting. Just it clicked for me, like from an anecdotal perspective, the how I do the onboarding for our new starters. And we kind of talk about digital transformation, what's occurred. And we talk about, you know, how do people consume content? It used to be YouTube is probably largely you know you're doing it on your PC your laptop that traditional way whereas now like it is on the TV screen like I think about you know my wife and I and there's so many statistics about it and I'm going to talk about it later is the connected TV like I probably spend more time on my actual big screen TV watching videos on YouTube and it is kind of incredible I think how commonplace that probably is now in terms of a consumption medium yeah I I mean, the question that we're always asked is, you know, is YouTube becoming a de facto broadcast, right?

16:43Like, that's a really big topic. And I think that the stats of people watching on connected TVs would suggest that that's the case. Obviously, I think that there's definitely been a shift towards short-form content in the form of YouTube shorts and then longer-form content. And as I say, a bit of a chicken and egg, people creating long-form content for the monetization opportunity there too. But that's really where we've seen that divide. and you're seeing content that's under a minute performing well on mobile. You're seeing long-form content performing well on TV. Makes sense. So speaking specifically about the monetization, YouTube, it feels like it's done quite a bit in the last couple of years trying to change things up from a monetization perspective.

17:21There's always been the ad component of it, but they are slowly unveiling new ways to monetize different things like membership, subscriptions. I think they're testing out some pay-per-view, doing all different things. Obviously, there's the stuff you can do that isn't directly with YouTube, whether that might be sponsorship, things like that. From a sports perspective, what are the monetization models you're seeing that are having the most success? Yeah. It's interesting because there's definitely a big gulf between when it comes to auction ads, like regular Google auction ads. There's a big gulf between certain rights holders that are generating significant revenue and those which are struggling.

17:59And a lot of it comes down to the audience composition. so I think it goes without saying that if most of your audience is US and Anglosphere based you're likely to generate higher CPMs and as a result of that you know more revenue in your pocket there's also how much you're giving back to the platform in terms of those retained rights so we're seeing like our partners like the PGA Tour for example when we first started working with them they were intent on publishing very short highlights and a lot of that worked for platform you know 10 years ago uh whereas nowadays you know we've said look a key goal for us to increase that watch time the visibility of the content um can we look at publishing some legacy uh full rounds so from old tournaments you know tiger woods classics from 1999 the stuff that fans from all ages just love right uh and um and so a video like that you know you're the the rpms you know 30 40 50 dollars upwards right whereas when most of the audience is uh based in you know india and bangladesh which is what some of our cricket partners struggle with in particular um you see an absolute fraction of that you know talking cents on the dollar so when it comes to auction there's that that big divide and it's about okay how can we how can we target the the the uh the high yielding territories there's a big goal for us um but we also do this through through partner sold as well so that's selling inventory on on a channel to the sponsorship partners of um of a particular governing body so for someone like the the us open it will be their headline sponsors for the tournament okay can we package up that inventory take it to market with you and sell it into your sponsors to run as pre-roll mid-roll and that will increase your your your cpms that you're seeing across your channel by three four five x as a result of that So that's one way through PartnerSold.

19:46Memberships is a really interesting one and one that we're looking into more and more with our partners. We're seeing that a lot of our challenger brand partners aren't getting the revenue that they once were from Broadcast. And even if they are getting revenue from there, the deals are worth a lot less than they were a few years ago, which is a common theme. And so they're looking at ways in which they can maximize the revenue. um from youtube and memberships is a great way of doing that because you don't need a huge audience to actually making a significant amount of amount of revenue and certainly some of the challenger brands that we're seeing like small olympic committees as an example um have got a lot of that core base of you know one two three thousand members who are each paying a subscription each month and actually that's the you know the sum of the parts is actually much much bigger than they would be receiving from from putting that on a traditional linear broadcast so memberships is very very interesting um currently there's there's definitely some work to do from youtube to make it more accessible for partners uh like there's no geo uh gating of of memberships currently which is a big one i've been pushing for so if youtube are watching uh that would be great um but that would allow any any partner if they've got retained rights in x y and z region to actually then have a membership option on youtube as an alternative to uh to a linear broadcast so memberships is a big one especially for emerging brands um so that's all that's all really good um and then sponsorships of course like when you're looking at sponsors um there's there's plenty of different innovative ways of doing it and one of the things that we're seeing and we saw actually in the australian open is utilizing youtube shorts for sponsorship and actually having youtube or digital first sponsors come on board so it's not necessarily your headline sponsors that have been on board sponsoring the whole event for decades, but actually new digital focused sponsors.

21:40So the Australian Open have Kraken. Yeah. So it's very much a modern digital brand. And having that as a sponsor for YouTube Shorts was really, really key to some of their growth this year. One of the things you talked about there with the memberships, I actually don't know this amount of curiosity. Is there an increase in the amount of data that can then be available? because I think one of the things that's been brought up and I hear a lot is people talk about owning fans. And I think one of the things that YouTube's great for is scale and reach, but there's not always necessarily known platforms.

22:09So do you know with some of these monetization models like membership, does that potentially allow more data or is it still the same amount? Your spot on the restriction is third party versus first party data, right? You have an OTT platform, you've got all the data to hand. Whereas on YouTube, you don't. And plus you're giving a percentage. But the benefit is that you're not having to shell out to create that system in the first place, right? And also it exists within your ecosystem. So Patreon, other crowd kind of funding, support membership options, they're great, but they're off platform. So integrating within the YouTube platform, obviously, is a huge benefit to actually retaining people.

22:46But at this stage, I don't think there's plans to give additional information that's not currently contained within the YouTube analytics on the backend. Yeah. Now, when you work with a new partner, chances are they've probably already been doing something on youtube i doubt that they've come to you with nothing on the table is there anything that's a common theme that you have to tell people like hey maybe you should stop doing this or there's a commonality between the people that come out to you for the first time with how they've previously approached youtube versus hey these are some simple things that you should consider changing or adding to that you're not already doing yeah yeah so there's obviously a layer of best practice right and there's the knowledge of knowing what works for for the platform and for certain audiences but but really every organization is different um and has and content that works for one organization one governing body inevitably won't work for another just because of the fan makeup um so an example of this would be someone like world insurance championship right where a lot of their fans are quite technically minded so we know that technical content that goes into the the details goes into the pit lane talks to the engineers it's going to resonate more than um than similar content on say the australian open which is like they brand themselves as the happy slam as roger federer once alluded to and they've already taken that on board so everything has to be kind of light-hearted and that's what viewers expect when they go onto that channel yes you know it's the interactions between uh the fans and the players and the the ball kids and the and the players and um it's all about showcasing the the stuff around the game as opposed to to just the the match itself so um yeah so when when organizations come to us there's definite like best practice that we put into place but it's all about kind of understanding what the the nuances are of their audience yeah and i guess that kind of leaves the question you know what in your opinion and again this might be one of the things we're like depending on who it is the answer is going to change you know is it the the format is it the creator is it the content i think the point i'm sort of getting at here is you know early in holland has a youtube channel most of his best performing stuff has nothing to do with football it's other things so it's just kind of curious like again are there consistencies or is it you know every group is going to be different in terms of like what performs well but like would you say there is a priority between who's actually producing the content versus what maybe the format is whether it's long form short form yeah or it's the content is it focused on the sport or is it you know one of the the side pieces around you know sports fashion does that that question make sense yeah yeah no it makes extent and one of the things that we are we are doing more and more with a lot of the data tools naturally the acquisition of engage is um understanding audience affinities better and using data to understand audience affinities and someone like harland who's doing yeah content around you know entertainment and others who are doing content around you know who are sports uh stars who are doing content around music or is understanding what those um the venn diagram is where the crossover is between between audiences and one of the great tools that we have is an audience affinity tool where we can um say okay your audience is x times more likely to be interested in y so erland harland's audience is seven times more likely to be interested in rap music yeah and that's really powerful data not only for um your your ideation and your content strategy but also when you're approaching brands you say okay well harland fans are x times more likely to be interested in i don't know monster munch right and you can then you can go to that brand and and talk to them and say right this is the data this is what we've pulled uh we can understand that there's that affinity between the audiences yeah and in terms of when we start talking about the monetization side of things i think everyone's always looking for the silver bullet and it just doesn't exist that way i when you speak to people and you tell them they come to you because they They know there's an intrinsic value in having a presence on YouTube and having a refined strategy for YouTube.

26:37When you're telling about perhaps the extent of what they could get out of YouTube from a monetary perspective, what are you usually kind of saying is realistic? And again, this is going to depend on how much are you willing to invest on the production side, how much are you willing to put into it? But for a standard budget, standard approach, is there something you're telling people is a realistic amount that they can look to make? And maybe we can separate this between from an advertisement perspective to the traditional Google models versus what potentially exists from a sponsorship perspective.

27:07Is there a general ballpark or a rough estimate? Chris, you'd love me to say it's going to be$500 ,000 in the first year. And it's going to be$2 million in the second year. And we do projections. Of course, we do projections. But they're based on the data that's provided and the access that we have to what their audience makeup is, what their retained rights are. That's a huge one. like if you you've got no retained rights on your your channel and it's all kind of around the game stuff yeah you can build an audience from that it's going to take longer yeah and it's going to take um a dedicated fan base to be able to do that so there's a lot of data that's involved in coming up with what those projections are for like years one two and three um but but yeah i think that the opportunity for massive organizations i work with the pjo tool the australian open us open ride loads of golf motorsport tennis brick it etc um and there's a an opportunity there for like incremental gains to to grow their audience but it's going to be dwarfed by their it's inevitably going to be dwarfed by their broadcast deals that they have in place because they're multi-year multi-multi multi-million pound deals that they have for emerging partners it can be a game changer it really can and in a variety of different ways so we work with the likes of gt world so endurance racing yeah they do 16 different series across four continents huge operation they stream like 3 000 hours on youtube wow globally right you can't watch anywhere else it's youtube alone so if you're a motorsport endurance motorsport fan it's the place to be right um and we still we started them goodness me i think it was way before my time at break by yeah so i think about 2012 and so a long long-standing partnership uh and their goal is obviously to generate revenue on the platform via auction ads and via um via partner sold we do our channel takeovers of some of the headline sponsors as well but but another one of their key goals is actually to expand that reach not only to build up their audience of like a developing um emerging challenger brand where they've been going for a little while now um but also to get like amateur racers interested in potentially being involved yes most of their revenue one of the biggest revenue streams is getting drivers there yeah so even though like i mean they're actually making considerable revenue because their content's really really long form it's live stream what we find is that they'll put out a video in 2017 and uh in 2026 that that stream because it's generated so much watch time over the years it will suddenly spike and peak and you have people commenting saying that they woke up and they were watching it because it was uh it was recommended to them during the middle of the night right and they fell asleep so uh but but ultimately like um yeah there isn't a like a golden figure that we can look at and say this is exactly what you'll make um but we're confident if you retain the rights to your to your content that you implement both auction ads partner sold and open to the other opportunities like memberships like merchandise that it can change the game especially for challenger brands so it's interesting that example you gave participation is obviously a key part of how they drive monetization which we were talking about the third party versus first party do you provide any sort of insights or strategy because presumably there will be other people you work with that will have their own platform are there strategies that you can help them with from a youtube perspective to drive them from youtube as a platform onto other platforms is that part of the conversations you have yeah yeah no it is and um you work with another endurance yeah uh championship world endurance championship yeah part of le mans part of the Le Mans series and one of their biggest goals is driving people to the OTT platform as well so one of the and they just launched their OTT this year like fully launched it and so one of the things that we're doing with them is looking at ways in which we can provide some live value on their channels like the European Le Mans series channel where we show like the first hour 90 minutes of a race with the intention of them pushing people to the OTT platform yeah so going okay if you want to watch the rest of the race the rest of the series here's how you can do it and providing that direct link over to there.

31:09There's inevitably ways in which you can do it through the community tab, using that as a way in which you can drive traffic and obviously cards, end cards and all the stuff that's integrated within YouTube to drive people over to OTT and really having that call to action as well, making sure that it's explicit within the content. And I think that's got to be so important because we're looking at the whole ecosystem. Like YouTube is just going to be one part of your own raw media strategy. And I think to your point, it's great for the reach flight. They still want to get the first party data. So I think that's just got to be an essential part of the conversation when you're having with people is like, yes, we want you to invest in YouTube.

31:40We want you to be serious about it. But there are also ways that YouTube can deliver value that isn't intrinsically just tied to the platform. Exactly. Exactly. That's it. That's it. And I think a lot of partners have moved away from just thinking it's like a marketing fund, like a way of just getting people to somewhere else. I think that's great. Like people are viewing it as a destination now, which has to be good. And also it's realistic. I mean, we might touch upon it a little bit later, but, you know, the BBC being a big one recently where, you know, they view YouTube as a destination now.

32:13Clearly with the partnership on YouTube, they know that their audience is there and they're meeting their audience where they are as opposed to where they hypothetically would want them to be. You know, we see, you know, linear broadcasts being reduced, people paying for TV licenses reducing. And so, you know, it's a switch up, a big change. I think that's far across the board. It's not just big news organizations like the BBC, but actually sports organizations that see it as an entity in its own right. And that's taken a long time to get to that point. Yeah, I mean, we were going to talk about it anyway, so we can just dive into it.

32:46How potentially important or a watershed moment is that seeing BBC do that? I believe they're going to launch 50 dedicated channels. It's not just going to be necessarily simply redistributing. They are going to put bespoke content on YouTube for that. And I think to your point, they listed the statistics about how prevalent usages of YouTube. And it was a comment that you made earlier where there has to be a really serious question about, is YouTube this thing that exists as a streaming platform or a social media platform, however you want to define it, or is it, it is actually the new TV? And, you know, is that signaling that there's a change?

33:24Do you expect similar things to potentially happen on other sides? Is this just the beginning or is it a unique deal? I don't think it's going to be a unique deal. We've spoken with other news groups within the space about, not necessarily about a partnership with YouTube in such a way, but like, how can we make YouTube a hub in its own right? And that's as recently as last week. And so there's going to be more, more new traditional news organizations that move not only to YouTube, but as well as social platforms and, and understand that they are like kind of hubs in their own right and where their audience is.

33:55I think this one's really interesting because of the, the license fee and that element of it. Like they're traditionally, they would, you know, obviously everything to do with the the first party data and keeping people within their ecosystem was, was so, so important because of the license fee. So that will come with its challenges, I'm sure. But yeah, I would be very surprised if this is the end of, of, of this movement of traditional broadcasters moving into this space. Yeah. And just to bring us back to, to wrap up the monetization side, I know you've given a couple of examples here, but the Australian Open is also a partner of you guys.

34:30And you spoke about, you've done some case studies on the really tremendous success there. And I think that perhaps provides some opportunity to give a little bit more tangibility about the monetization side and the success you can have. Because, again, you're thinking about someone that is going to have traditional broadcast partners. They are going to have limitations to the things that they are able to do. But just because you don't necessarily have access to your rights should not be a limiting factor to what you can do from a success perspective. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the Australian Open was was absolutely huge, record breaking this year.

34:58Most views across any Grand Slam ever on YouTube, which is fantastic. and um one of the big things that's changed over the last few years uh for the australian open also the us open who we work with is the emphasis on the opening week so the week before the tournament starts what traditionally would be qualifying and a few years ago would just be an empty ground with a few courts made up of qualifiers right and now it's a music festival it's a food festival it's you know you're meeting with the players there's loads of practice going on there's absolutely i don't know if you've ever been to the us open or the australian open but it's just filled with with kids and their parents and the excitement is tangible so that's changed um and a big one this year for the australian open was the introduction of the one point slam i'm not sure if you watched it it was live streaming on youtube uh so uh so that did incredibly well it was also on espn and nine and some of the other broadcasters as well but new formats and one of the great things about working with the australian open specifically is that they are innovators like they want to to you know to to push the boundaries of what's been done before and so we are very much along on that journey with them um and looking at ways in which we can um ensure that that content does the best that it can across across youtube as a platform so not only did they have the one point slam which was uh absolute spectacle and um like janik sinner the number one player in the world hit the ball and said that on his first serve he's out so there's jeopardy there right immediate jeopardy but they also had exhibitions you know had evenings with our Novak Djokovic and Al Karaz and the top players which really made that fan week really special so I think that's the first thing building up the algorithm on YouTube so that once we get to the main tournament everyone's primed to be to be recommended the actual match footage in their feeds the feed is really really important and then other things like last year for example we did AO Animated another one that got quite a lot of um mainstream uh i guess the spotlight was shown in the mainstream um and that was did you see that do you see the animal stuff okay so it was basically taking the match footage in real time and overlaying animations on top of it and so it was being played uh in real time with kind of wee characters hitting it back and forth right and uh and what was great about that is that there's a bit of a gray area with the the broadcast rights so it was live streamed on youtube uh and and it did cause a few issues um you know we'll say that it that it didn't um but this year it was then sold into the broadcasters as another package so yeah the risk was taken and had some issues there but when it came down to it actually it's increased the value of the of the the tournament and increased the monetary value for for the for the sales that their broadcast rights there you go so one other example just want to talk about because we talked about the BBC, but there's also the recent news.

37:45I think as of when we're recording this, I think the news might've been two weeks ago. Mark Goldbridge, obviously a very famous content creator here in the UK with what he does originally around Man United, but now he's doing stuff more broadly within football. There's also Gary Neville's The Overlap, which has built a lot of success. They have also done some stuff beforehand with the Bundesliga, with what the Bundesliga is doing here in the UK. But Gary Neville and The Overlap have acquired Mark Goldbridge. And I think it is interesting. You see some people on social media be like, oh, he's a sellout, but it's also like Mark Goldbridge is kind of an OG.