NewTeevee reviews youtube’s newly designed distination pages for premium TV shows and movie contet.
We’d worried that YouTube’s redesign to promote premium content would crowd out the site’s homegrown stars. But now that YouTube has launched its site refresh, we see we might have been overly concerned. The new shows and movies section is well-contained within a little header tab. The premium content is highlighted so marginally that I’m not sure people will even find it unless they read the news reports.
Overall, I think Hulu still handily beats YouTube as far as premium content goes. It has better selection, fewer ads, and more sharing potential through embeds. What YouTube has going for it is the big audience — 10 times as many unique viewers as Hulu by Nielsen’s last count. It’s too early to say whether YouTube’s unwashed masses will show up to watch premium content in this new venue — from what I’d seen, numbers for full episodes from providers like CBS were pretty small before the redesign.