YouTube has now spent half a year as the leading company in share of TV viewing in the United States, with 13.4% of all TV use in July, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That's a four-point lead over Disney, and it represents something we haven't seen before in entertainment history. The platform that started with grainy webcam videos has quietly become America's most-watched TV network.Is the platform positioning itself to challenge Hollywood's movie studios next?The infrastructure suggests it's already happening. YouTube's CEO has noted that "TV has surpassed mobile" as the main device for YouTube viewing in the U.S., with viewers watching over 1 billion hours every day on their TVs. YouTube creators are now building actual studios, with facilities like Alan Chikin Chow's 10,000-square-foot office in Burbank and new production facilities from creators like Kinigra Deon in Alabama. MarkiplierCredit: YouTubeThe leap from YouTube creator to filmmaker via traditional means is very possible. Two major YouTubers have feature films ready this year—Markiplier's Iron Lung, based on a horror video game, and Chris Stuckmann's Shelby Oaks, a supernatural horror. Stuckmann, a film critic with over 2 million subscribers, raised nearly $1.4 million through Kickstarter and landed distribution with NEON, the same company behind Longlegs.These creators may understand their audiences in some ways studios don't, and the big players are struggling to reach some of them, especially young viewers, as a result. Traditional studios are inadvertently validating YouTube as a distribution platform. Recently, Warner Bros. tried treating YouTube as a dumping ground...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - Yesterday