CBS Boosts Ratings With YouTube Channel

Posted on November 22, 2006

Mashable reports that CBS has accomplished some impressive numbers with its channel on YouTube.com.

Analysts have long been saying that YouTube is a gift for the TV networks: now we have the stats to prove it. CBS announced today that viewers are flocking to their TV shows after seeing the clips on YouTube. "Letterman" has gained 5 percent (or 200,000 new viewers), while "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" is up 7 percent (or 100,000 viewers) since the CBS YouTube channel debuted a month ago. They've uploaded 300 clips so far, which have averaged 857,000 views per day in total - that's 29.2 million views on YouTube this month. It's also worth noting that YouTube takes that content to millions of viewers outside of the US who can't access CBS normally - if we could measure the channel's global influence and recognition, I'm sure that will have increased dramatically. CBS has three of the top 25 Most Viewed videos this month, and they have 9 of the Most Viewed videos today (let's hope they're not gaming YouTube!). What's more, they've got nearly 22,000 subscribers.

22,000 subscribers puts CBS in the top five YouTube channels -- but for some reason they are not showing up in the list. They are still being crushed by the Lonelygirl15 channel, which has over 60,000 subscribers. CBS should be able to pass Smosh, geriatric1927 and Brookers to move into the #2 slot but catching up to Lonelygirl15 could take some time.

The fact that the YouTube channel has helped boost Craig Ferguson's ratings by 7% is impressive. CBS also seems to be uploading more videos now than when they first launched the channel -- a sign that they like the results they are getting. It will be shocking if more networks don't launch their own YouTube channels so they can promote their stars and shows and easily track the number of views on their videos.