{"id":878485,"date":"2025-12-17T23:30:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/17\/this-isnt-the-old-pre-roll-world-youtube-has-been-talking-tv-now-its-selling-that-way\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T23:30:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:30:31","slug":"this-isnt-the-old-pre-roll-world-youtube-has-been-talking-tv-now-its-selling-that-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/17\/this-isnt-the-old-pre-roll-world-youtube-has-been-talking-tv-now-its-selling-that-way\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This isn\u2019t the old pre-roll world\u2019: YouTube has been talking TV \u2014 now it\u2019s selling that way"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Krystal Scanlon<\/a><\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 December 17, 2025<\/span> \u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/p>\n

\n Ivy Liu <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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YouTube has been chasing TV ad budgets<\/a> for years. What\u2019s changed recently is the approach.<\/p>\n

Marketers who\u2019ve sat through recent pitches say the difference is clear. The VIP packages, sold both directly to advertisers and through agencies, are built around spend thresholds. The more an advertiser commits, the more they unlock \u2013 credits, price discounts and access to higher tiers of creators. The specifics of those incentives and tiers, however, remain under wraps.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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What stands out though is who YouTube is aiming these deals at. The pitch is landing squarely on TV advertisers \u2013 buyers used to making larger commitments in exchange for better access, sharper pricing and a more predictable schedule. Appropriately enough, YouTube has dubbed it the VIP (Video Incentives Program) program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe VIP program is really beneficial for clients because they can get credits, price advantages and tap into YouTube\u2019s creators, who create custom content,\u201d said Hermelinda Fernandez, svp, digital investment at Canvas Worldwide, adding that her clients want to buy YouTube this way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvertisers have the ability to try and create more of a TV schedule on the platform as well,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

All of which underscores a long-running effort by YouTube to win over upfront buyers. It has learned to speak the language of TV \u2013 adopting its language, economics and buying mechanics \u2013 without ever fully shedding its creator-led DNA. That unresolved tension has fueled its growth, and it\u2019s also why some buyers still hesitate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle is participating like an upfront partner, whereby advertisers only have access to certain creators if they are a VIP upfront brand,\u201d Fernandez said. \u201cThey\u2019re really acting like an NBC or a Disney by saying you can\u2019t have access to certain creators unless you do a formal upfront.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another media buyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they\u2019re weighing a similar deal. And like the one presented to Fernandez and her team, it isn\u2019t just about locking in YouTube spend. It\u2019s designed to pull more CTV dollars into DV360, positioning Google\u2019s demand-side platform less as a YouTube buying tool and more as a unified one for TV-style buying across YouTube, streaming TV and the open web. In effect, YouTube becomes an incentive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So much so that the VIP YouTube package presented to this buyer required prioritizing demand generation, Google online video and CTV and audio spending through DV360.<\/p>\n

And these conversations aren\u2019t limited to the biggest advertisers.<\/p>\n

Collective Measures\u2019 group director of performance media, Lauren Beerling confirmed that Google has been positioning YouTube as a bonafide alternative to CTV and TV for a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Digiday previously reported, with the exception of CTV-oriented strategies, advertisers previously<\/a> viewed YouTube as a reach platform, rather than those specifically watching content on their TV screens. Still, YouTube wanted<\/a> advertisers to better understand how they could treat CTV more than just another inventory source, while making it a bigger part of its portfolio. What\u2019s unfolding now is the latest, and most explicit, version of that push.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re [Google] leaning on a few consistent pillars: the majority of YouTube watch time happens on TV and that the platform drives over 1 billion hours of watch time globally, everyday,\u201d said Beerling. \u201cThey\u2019ve [Google] also compared incremental reach to linear, emphasising that YouTube captures light or cord-cutting audiences linear can\u2019t reach, as well as better measurement than traditional TV (think brand and conversion lift, YouTube CTV attribution, and growing MMM [media mix modelling] alignment).\u201d<\/p>\n

Go Fish is another agency that has sat in on similar talks. The company\u2019s svp paid social, Logan Durant, said that Google\u2019s general pitch is that when compared to linear, \u201cYouTube is more measurable, more flexible with targeting and creative, and has a growing reach vs. linear TV\u2019s shrinking reach\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Durant also referenced materials he\u2019s received from Google, one being a direct table comparison called \u201cWhy advertisers prefer YouTube over linear TV\u201d which directly compares \u201cYouTube advantages\u201d with \u201cLinear TV limitation\u201d across measurability, buying, targeting, optimization, creative, cost efficiency and audience reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t the old pre-roll world,\u201d Go Fish\u2019s evp of Innovation Ethan Kramer said, talking about the features Google has been building to strengthen this pitch. \u201cPause-ads, longer unskippables, Creator Premieres, and Netflix-style UI updates are explicitly designed to feel familiar to traditional TV buyers while also native to viewers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing matters. In May, The Information reported<\/a> on YouTube\u2019s profitability, citing estimates from research firm MoffettNathanson that put YouTube\u2019s operating income just under $8 billion in 2024, compared with $112 billion for Alphabet overall \u2013 roughly 7% of the total.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That gap looks increasingly hard to ignore given YouTube\u2019s dominance of attention. The platform says it drives more than a billion hours of watch time globally each day and Nielsen\u2019s October tracker showed YouTube leading all streaming services in TV usage at 12.9%, ahead of Disney, Netflix and Amazon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYouTube doesn\u2019t want to be the biggest digital video platform,\u201d Kramer said. \u201cIt clearly wants to compete with network TV, short form and social spend at the same time and so far they are extremely well positioned to capitalize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google \/ YouTube declined Digiday\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

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By Krystal Scanlon \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 December 17, 2025 \u00a0\u2022 Ivy Liu YouTube has been chasing TV ad budgets for years. What\u2019s changed recently is the approach. Marketers who\u2019ve sat through recent pitches say the difference is clear. The VIP packages, sold both directly to advertisers and through agencies, are built around spend thresholds. The more an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":878486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079,688,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-878485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-this","8":"category-isnt","9":"category-youtube-videos"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}