How NBC News is making ‘many millions’ of dollars on YouTube after adjusting its strategy

By Tim Peterson

In the past, TV networks’ news organizations like NBC News have used YouTube as a side hustle. They would cut clips from their linear TV programming to put on the digital video platform, where they could generate a small amount of incremental ad revenue and potentially convince some viewers to tune in on traditional TV or the networks’ owned-and-operated digital properties. But over the past few years — and especially in 2020 — YouTube has switched from being supplementary to central to NBC News’ video strategy. “We got serious about our YouTube strategy last year and really got purposeful,” said Chris Berend, evp of digital at NBCUniversal News Group.

YouTube’s prominence for NBC News rose as the revenue the platform earned increased. Berend declined to say exactly how much money NBC News is making on YouTube annually but described the figure as being “in the many millions” and surpasses the revenue generated from other platforms like Facebook and Twitter. “YouTube far out-punches those platforms when it comes to video revenue. YouTube is a video-watching platform. Twitter and Facebook are not video platforms,” he said.

Generally, advertisers continue to be wary of news programming, however. That could change this year if the news cycle moderates compared to 2020. “The hope is that typical government conversations go back to being tamer, and more advertisers will become more comfortable,” said one agency executive.

But having an established brand like NBC News and an inventory pool that spans traditional TV, connected TV and digital video platforms helps. Advertisers tend to be more comfortable running ads against news videos when buying directly from media companies because it can be easier for advertisers to manage their campaigns. Plus, some advertisers are coming to grips with recognizing they risk missing out on large, attentive audiences if they avoid news programming altogether. “The reality is the eyeballs are there,” said a second agency executive.

NBC News’s YouTube revenue increase helped justify the time and attention NBC News’s dedicated video team spent on YouTube. Berend estimated the size of that team to be no more than 10 employees whose purview spans digital video platforms like YouTube, streaming platforms like ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV and NBCUniversal’s own digital sites and apps. On YouTube, the team is responsible for packaging up NBC News’s videos, including determining headlines and designing thumbnails, as well as analyzing viewership trends, such as people’s willingness to watch longer videos like full episodes of “NBC Nightly News” and “Meet the Press” that are uploaded to YouTube after they air on linear TV.

From March through December of 2020, “NBC Nightly News” episodes average 1.6 million viewers on YouTube per episode, with 30% to 40% of viewers watching on TV screens, according to an NBC News spokesperson. Meanwhile, since the start of this year, 2.2 million people, on average, have spent at least 20 minutes watching episodes of “Meet the Press” on YouTube.

Those longer videos — as well as the live programming that NBC News streams on YouTube — likely contribute to …read more

Source:: Digiday