YouTube Challenges Netflix

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 12, 10:35AM EDT

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YouTube Challenges Netflix — © 5./15 WEST / iStock Unreleased via Getty Images

Teenagers have turned to YouTube as their preferred way to watch videos. This may hurt Netflix, which is the largest video service and has been the most profitable.

According to new Piper Sandler research, among teenagers, 29.1% of their daily video viewing is on YouTube. The Netflix figure is 28.7%.

It is hard to say how bad this news is for Netflix. It remains the largest paid subscriber service, with about 220 million subscribers. Most people who use Netflix do not opt for the paid service, although it is heavily promoted. (The best show to watch on Netflix right now.)

Amazon is just behind Netflix in paid subscribers. Because the video service is usually part of Amazon Prime, people get many other benefits, likely to keep them glued to their memberships.
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The research is probably worse for the tier of paid streaming video services smaller than Netflix. Most people only take three to four paid streaming video services. If YouTube takes up some of that bandwidth, it is a challenge for Max, Peacock, Disney+ and Hulu, at least.
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The other open issue is whether the behavior of teenagers continues to remain the same as they age. Netflix and Amazon create their video programs, which YouTube does not. The paid service has huge libraries, which YouTube, for the most part, does not.

Is the Piper research a big story? It is too early to tell.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.