The industry loves repeating that YouTube is the No. 1 streaming platform on television. But when people explain why, the talking points almost always point to creators, Shorts, gaming, commentary, or podcasts. But that framing misses one of the biggest, oldest, and still wildly dominant viewing behaviors on YouTube’s TV app: Music videos. There is no major U.S. television network actively programming music videos anymore yet the audience for music-on-TV is larger than ever -- and it now lives on YouTube. While marketers obsess over creator culture, tens of millions of people turn on YouTube the same way previous generations turned on MTV -- as a constant, living-room soundtrack. And because the industry rarely categorizes this behavior as “CTV,” it has become one of the largest blind spots in modern media planning
Music Videos Never Stopped Being TV -- Advertisers Just Forgot to Look
