Susanne Daniels has resigned as YouTube’s global head of original content after six years. She will leave in March. There, Daniels developed Cobra Kai, which was a YouTube original before moving to Netflix after two seasons. She also developed On Becoming a God in Central Florida, which moved to Showtime.
In a letter to CEO Susan Wojcicki published Wednesday, over 80 fact checking groups say the Google-owned video platform is “one of the major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide.”
Exclusives
Comscore said today it has begun measuring viewing across YouTube and YouTube TV across YouTube’s biggest platforms, including personal computers, mobile devices and connected TV. Comscore will be able to provide metrics for de-duplicated viewing of campaigns on YouTube and YouTube TV for advertisers and measure the co-viewing of content on CTV screens.
YouTube on Monday introduced an option for performance advertisers that allows them to drive and measure conversions on connected television (CTV) by increasing the ability for viewers to shop from the messages in the ads they see on the screen. Now, for the first time, performance advertisers can take advantage of YouTube on CTV to drive and measure conversion through the expansion of Video action campaigns.
The new set of policies will cover not just the COVID-19 vaccines or long-approved vaccines against diseases like measles and hepatitis B, but also general claims about vaccines, YouTube said.
NewsGuard will enable Zefr’s clients to create inclusion and exclusion lists, preventing them from “overblocking” legitimate news publishers. (Image: NewsGuard)
YouTube’s vice president of content partnerships, Kelly Merryman, a key executive who helped smooth relationships with Hollywood networks and studios, has left the company.
Researchers have identified YouTube as playing a major role in misinformation campaigns, including the effort to discredit the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Yet it has repeatedly ducked the brunt of backlashes that Facebook and Twitter have absorbed head-on.
Former President Donald Trump on Monday urged a federal court to order YouTube to quickly restore his former channel on the online video-sharing platform. In a 39-page request for an injunction, Trump’s lawyers argue that his permanent suspension from YouTube is causing him “irreparable injury,” because he is being deprived of “his donor and merchandising platforms,” as well as his ability to endorse political candidates.
During the Tokyo Games, which ran July 23-Aug. 8, YouTube viewers watched more than 200 million hours of Olympics-related content (including historical footage of past Olympic Games). According to the video platform, that’s seven times the amount of hours of Olympic Games content YouTube visitors watched during Rio 2016.
Trump announced the action against Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube, along with the companies’ CEOs, at a press conference in New Jersey on Wednesday. He was joined by other plaintiffs in the suits, which were filed in federal court in Miami.
In a shift that could help Google’s YouTube sidestep future political controversy, as well as make it more attractive to a broader audience, the social video site has announced that it has stopped taking ads related to elections and political content, alcohol, gambling and prescription drugs in its masthead ads.
Among new original show announcements for ad-supported video platform YouTube, its connected TV ads will now offer new functions for advertisers. Viewers can click to go to a brand’s website while still watching a video. The announcement came during YouTube’s IAB NewFronts presentation on Tuesday.
Usually, when social media executives are brought to testify in front of Congress, the hearings are centered on specific policies and types of content, misinfo and foreign interference, antitrust issues, and privacy concerns. What doesn’t quite get as much attention are the engines that drive these platforms: their algorithms. That’s what makes Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube different. The hearing is entirely focused on social media algorithms.
In a letter sent Tuesday to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the U.S. House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy said YouTube does not do enough to protect kids from material that could harm them. Instead it relies on artificial intelligence and creators’ self-regulation to decide what videos make it on to the platform, according to the letter.
Siding with YouTube, the Biden administration is urging a federal judge to reject an attempt by video creators to invalidate Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The administration’s move comes in a lawsuit by Kimberly Carleste Newman and other content creators who say YouTube wrongly restricted and de-monetized videos with titles like “black lives matter,” “racism,” and “white supremacy.”
TVN Focus On Digital | Facebook Remains TV Stations’ Most Important Social Platform
Facebook overwhelmingly is the most important social media platform for TV stations, say executives for CBS stations, E.W. Scripps, Nexstar, NBCU stations, Fox stations and Meredith. Broadcasters’ relationship with the platform once widely viewed as a “frenemy” continues to evolve, though the opacity of its all-important algorithm still frustrates. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.
The series of 21 telecasts start on Wednesday, April 7, at 1:10 p.m. ET when the Boston Red Sox host the AL champion Tampa Bay Rays in the finale of a two-game series, MLB and YouTube said Monday. The games are exclusive and will not be televised by club broadcast partners.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said Thursday that former President Trump’s account on the platform will be reinstated “when we determine that the risk of violence has decreased.” Trump’s YouTube account was suspended a week after the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The crop of Super Bowl ads 2021 employed a large contingent of A-list celebrities in front and behind the camera and featured major Hollywood brands. Not surprisingly, they dominated the list of most watched Super Bowl commercials on YouTube during gameday.
YouTube on Thursday announced an update to its global hub for sports content known as Sports. The changes are being made across mobile, desktop and connected TV (CTV). The content will offer clips and highlights from top leagues worldwide, along with exclusive live games and premium content from popular athletes and creators. Videos available are from NFL, La Liga, MLB, NBA and WWE.
ViacomCBS will be promoting new series on CBS by streaming them on Pluto TV and other over-the-top platforms. The Equalizer and Clarice will be available for two weeks after they premiere on the CBS Broadcast Network.
YouTube announced on Tuesday that it is extending its suspension of uploads from outgoing President Trump’s account for “a minimum” of another seven days, citing “concerns about the ongoing potential for violence.” The Google-owned platform, which initiated the Trump ban last week after Trump supporters’ insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, confirmed that it will also continue to stop comments from showing on videos posted in Trump’s channel.
As the historic events unfolded on Capitol Hill during the afternoon and evening of Jan. 6, people around the world tuned into news networks and social media to follow what was happening. The TV networks also harnessed social platforms such as YouTube to share breaking news, videos and more as the Capitol was thrown into chaos.
YouTube announced that it will temporarily suspend President Donald Trump’s official account for at least seven days. The video sharing platform now joins a number of internet apps, including Twitter and Snapchat, that have limited the president’s access following his involvement in last Wednesday’s violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, which left at least six people dead.
YouTube executive Kelly Merryman has been instrumental in improving content partnerships with large media companies like Disney and Viacom.
A federal judge has dismissed claims that YouTube, Hasbro, the Cartoon Network and other companies violated children’s privacy by allegedly tracking them in order to serve them with targeted ads. In a ruling issued Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose, Calif., said the children’s representatives couldn’t proceed with the case because the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act doesn’t allow for private lawsuits.
The Federal Trade Commission on Monday voted to issue orders to nine major internet platforms requiring information about how they handle data for a new study. The orders, which do not implicate any legal wrongdoing, were sent to Amazon, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), Discord, Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter, WhatsApp and Youtube. The agency is requesting information about how the platforms collect, use, track or estimate personal and demographic information.
The feature will begin in Ad Settings in the U.S. with YouTube Ads, then in Google Ads and YouTube globally in early 2021. Countries with legal restrictions against serving gambling and alcohol ads will not see any change in their policies.
The Recording Industry Association of America runs into some pushback after objecting to a tool that creates permanent copies of YouTube content.
YouTube has barred One America News Network, a cable TV news channel, from posting new videos for a week after it uploaded a video promoting a cure for COVID-19. “After careful review, we removed a video from OANN and issued a ‘strike’ on the channel for violating our Covid-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content claiming there’s a guaranteed cure,” said Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson.
YouTube has begun inserting ads in some videos from channels not in its YouTube Partner Program, and therefore not eligible to share in the ad revenue. In a update to its terms of service this week, YouTube added language stating that it has the “right to monetize all content on the platform and ads may appear on videos from channels not in the YouTube Partner Program.”
YouTube on Tuesday launched audio ads and dynamic music lineups as the number of logged-in viewers continues to rise. Audio ads, in beta, is the first advertising format on YouTube designed to connect brands with music fans in engaged and ambient listening on the site.
