YouTube had a breakout year on TVs. A top exec explains what videos perform best on the big screen.

• YouTube creators are increasingly optimizing their content for TV screens.
• There was an uptick in 4K videos and creators earning revenue from TV viewership this year.
• YouTube exec Kurt Wilms broke down the top performing content on the big screen.

2024 was a breakout year for watching YouTube on the big screen.

YouTube said this month that creator earnings from TV were up more than 30% year over year, and the share of videos uploaded in 4K was up over 35%.

Kurt Wilms, senior director of product management at YouTube, said more creators are making highly produced, episodic content. Wilms leads teams responsible for YouTube's "living room" efforts.

"2024 was the year of living room," Wilms told Business Insider. "Creators across the board, no matter what content they're making, are leaning into optimizing their content for the biggest screen."

Historically, many creators thought their audiences would be watching on a mobile phone and didn't expect them to watch for an hour or two in one sitting, Wilms said. But now, creators are no longer limited to thinking about making content in bite-sized pieces.

Michelle Khare, who has 4.8 million subscribers, is an example of a YouTube creator focused on episodic content. Her "Challenge Accepted" series is divided into episodes and seasons. She also categorizes her content on YouTube and organizes similar-themed videos into playlists, which makes it easier to watch them all at once on a TV screen.

"One of the things that has happened throughout 2024 is content that's maybe traditionally viewed on television, like sports and kids' content, is performing well for us on the TV," Wilms said. "It's gained a lot of momentum."

In YouTube Studio, creators can see their analytics related to how different videos performed across devices such as mobile, web, and TV.

"I would assume for most creators over time they're going to see a shift and TV viewership pick up," Wilms said. "I just think that's an overall industry trend and viewing trend that's going to happen."

Looking ahead, Wilms said his team is thinking about how to better enable features that let the audience interact with creators more easily on the big screen.

Here are 3 high performing types of content on the YouTube app for TVs, according to Wilms:

1. Watch-along sports content

A popular search term for sports-related content on YouTube is "watchalong," which is what creators call commentary-related videos for live events, including sports.

"You can come before a game to see the news, the predictions, the clips, the interviews, all leading up to a game," Wilms said. "When the game's going on, you can see real-time reaction highlights and commentary on the plays. Then, when the game is over, you can see all the official highlights and pundits talking about what they thought of the game."

NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL RedZone subscribers can watch two to four streams together based on program start and end times with a feature called multiview.

Wilms said next year, his team would continue to pilot a feature called "watch with," where the viewer can watch both an event and a creator at once on screen.

"Watch with was born out of this idea that creators are commentators," Wilms said. "We're in the early stages of development on this feature. But we think it's going to be amazing for creators and viewers."

2. Content geared to kids

Kids' content also performs well on TV, Wilms said.

"I think because one of the big value props of YouTube on the big screen is the ability to co-watch it with others, whether it's friends or family," Wilms said.

In the last year, the Ms. Rachel YouTube channel, which has 12.8 million subscribers, had one of the platform's highest watch times on TVs, the company said this month.

Last year, YouTube combined YouTube and YouTube Kids into one app for the living room. Now, YouTube is rolling out a feature for TVs called Parent Code, which allows parents to set a PIN code to access adult-focused content on the app.

3. Long-form video podcasts

YouTube creators are redefining what a podcast is.

Traditionally, a podcast was thought of as an audio-only experience. But now, many creators make video podcasts that resemble a talk show format.

"With video podcasts in the living room, you can put it on your TV and watch or listen to it while you do something else hands-free," Wilms said.

Wilms said viewers generally choose to watch content on the big screen over a mobile phone or a computer for three main reasons: they are dedicated fans of a creator; they want to watch content with others; or they are at home and watch while they do something else, like clean or make dinner.