Can YouTube be both TV and a 'home base' for the creator economy? With MD Kim Larson

Can YouTube be both TV and a 'home base' for the creator economy? With MD Kim Larson

From The Media Leader Podcast by The Media Leader

July 20, 2026 · 19 min · Season 5 · Episode 104

About this episode

Kim Larson discusses the complexities of YouTube's role as both a TV platform and a home base for the creator economy.

Is YouTube TV? It’s a question that pretty much everyone in this industry has an opinion on. YouTube, surely, would benefit from receiving TV budgets from advertisers. And, after all, more people are watching YouTube on TV sets. At the same time, YouTube isn’t exactly leaning into TV measurement standards. It’s been in a back-and-forth here in the UK with TV measurement company Barb, most recently sending it a cease-and-desist over Barb’s effort to measure TV set viewing of a specific subset of YouTube channels. Before the measurement initiative was shut down, it had revealed that much of YouTube viewing on TV sets was clearly being done by very small children , with viewership in the UK relatively light and limited to shows like Peppa Pig and Bluey. Of course, whether YouTube should be considered TV is just one question for YouTube, which has been wrapped up in social media bans for under-16s and has been found by a US jury to have designed its platform to be harmfully addictive. For brands, though, one of the biggest challenges they have with their YouTube strategy and managing its fragmented nature – there’s long-form, there’s TV set viewing, there’s Shorts, and there are…

People in this episode

Host: Jack Benjamin

Guest: Kim Larson

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: YouTube, Barb

Books & works: Peppa Pig, Bluey

Places: UK, US, Cannes

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