YouTube gets 1.8 billion logged-in viewers monthly
And it confirmed its next slate of original shows.
On stage today at Radio City Music Hall, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki made a surprising revelation: the service gets 1.8 billion logged-in viewers every month. And that doesn't include people who aren't logged in -- which means the actual number of people watching YouTube is definitely much higher. Last June, the service had 1.5 billion logged-in watchers. On TVs alone, people are now watching 150 million hours of YouTube every day. The latest figures are yet another sign that YouTube's reach is staggering, something that Wojcicki wanted to make crystal clear for the audience of advertisers and potential partners at its annual BrandCast event.
"It's incredibly important to me and everyone at YouTube that we grow responsibly," the CEO said, addressing concerns about the company's ability to properly monitor offensive content. "There is not a playbook for how open platforms operate at our scale... The way I think about it, it's critical we're on the right side of history."
Wojcicki said YouTube has built "infrastructure and tools" to properly manage its platform over the past year. Additionally, it's also made guidelines and policies more restrictive, committed more people to monitoring content, and it's relying on the "latest machine learning" technology to help. While that's all well and good, she also didn't reveal any new strategies for better managing YouTube's platform.
Naturally, YouTube also took the opportunity to reveal its next batch of originals. Will Smith's Grand Canyon bungee jump was the biggest announcement. And in addition to its highschool basketball series with Lebron James, Best Shot, there's also If I Could Tell You Just One Thing, which features Priyanka Chopra traveling the world and talking with inspirational people. Jack Whitehall will also work out with professional soccer players in Training Days. As for existing shows, YouTube is renewing three: Kevin Hart's What the Fit, The Super Slow Show and the Untitled Demi Lovato Project.
