What local broadcasters must do now to win on YouTube
The new year is coming in hot, as evidenced by Tom Sly’s excellent piece at TV News Check titled “YouTube is TV. Broadcasters must face what that means.“
This topic hits close to home. As director of digital content at Griffin Media from 2017 to 2024, I made it my mission to unlock YouTube’s potential for our stations. When I arrived, the company’s YouTube presence was fragmented across multiple Google AdSense accounts owned by different departments. Previous attempts to establish a YouTube presence had been abandoned before I joined.
I’ve been a YouTuber since 2006, and I believe deeply in the platform. I was also ahead of the curve on where it was headed.
Wrangling these accounts proved to be an adventure. Without YouTube partner status (which requires at least 100,000 subscribers), getting help is difficult. Fortunately, a colleague had kept excellent notes, including a phone number for someone who had previously assisted with our accounts. I called it.
A Google executive answered my cold call. I had caught her walking to her car somewhere in San Francisco. She was gracious enough to connect me with someone at YouTube who helped us consolidate the News 9 and News On 6 channels under one primary Google account. (I wish I could credit her by name, but I’ve long since forgotten it.)
From there, I spent three years experimenting with various growth strategies. The channels grew quickly, and we generated upwards of six figures in revenue by the time I left at the end of 2024.
Before I detail what worked best for us, I agree with about 95% of what Tom wrote. Please make sure to read his piece.
I’ll note where I differ below.
What actually works on YouTube for local TV
1. Live streaming is paramount. Yes, on-demand content matters, but going live is the most important thing local stations can do—especially during breaking news or severe weather. Tying a video CMS to a YouTube feed to create a 24/7 channel isn’t difficult. Do it. Also, severe weather coverage is 10x more important than breaking news coverage on YouTube. Maybe 100x.
2. Don’t just replicate TV content. As Tom noted, replicating TV content for YouTube isn’t an effective strategy. We tried posting full newscasts for on-demand viewing, but the juice was never worth the squeeze. My former station still does this, but the mindset is flawed. They view YouTube as a discovery platform for linear TV, and it simply doesn’t work that way.
That said, refer back to Point No. 1: being live on YouTube during major breaking news or severe weather can work as a discovery funnel to linear TV. You want to be where people are. That consistency builds trust, trust wins viewership, and trust over time builds viewership frequency. In local TV right now, frequency is everything for ratings.
3. Master YouTube style. Titles, descriptions, and thumbnails must follow YouTube conventions. Using your station’s graphics package to create thumbnails won’t grow your channel. YouTube thumbnails look like YouTube thumbnails — Canva offers excellent examples. Yes, they’re often a bit loud: clear but bright, with bold colors and large fonts. That’s the style that works.
4. Organize with playlists. I don’t recommend creating separate channels for different topics. That’s what playlists are for, and YouTube audiences understand this. Multiple channels don’t function like multiple linear channels — they just create confusion. However, playlists are essential. Without them, your channel becomes a video dumping ground.
5. Develop a Shorts strategy. YouTube supports vertical video up to three minutes, and Shorts drive subscriber growth. The more Shorts you publish, the more subscribers you’ll gain. I’ve tested this repeatedly with consistent success. Long-form horizontal videos produce watch time, and the combination of subscribers plus watch time equals revenue.
6. Revenue isn’t everything—but it matters. Tom is right that YouTube offers tremendous value beyond monetization: branding, top-of-funnel awareness, and rich data insights. However, with a well-executed strategy and patient, supportive leadership, YouTube can become a mid-six to seven-figure revenue source for virtually any local TV station. We generated nearly $100,000, and that was just the beginning — built on the work of one person, me.
7. Publish frequently and study the data. Here’s where I slightly disagree with Tom: there’s no real penalty for publishing as often as you can. I advise stations to publish more, not less, while studying the data closely and eliminating content that doesn’t perform.
Tom highlighted YouTube content that works: explainers, weather stories, investigative pieces, breaking news analysis. I’d add one more critical element: post as many long-form, uncut interviews as possible. When assigning someone to conduct an interview for a TV story, treat that interview as YouTube-first content. This approach gives you a longer video to work with while still providing material to cut for broadcast.
In my view, a local TV station in a Top 75 market should aim to publish five to seven Shorts per day and two to three pieces of YouTube-original long-form content. I wouldn’t stop posting TV packages either—some perform moderately to exceptionally well, and enough “moderately wells” add up. Don’t post everything, but learn what does well, and post that.
Understand this: 20% of your content will generate 80% of your results. It might even be 10% generating 90%.
The bottom line
The biggest obstacle isn’t strategy or execution — it’s mindset. Too many TV executives view YouTube as a nice-to-have, an extra, a digital project to support when everything else is going well. That attitude cannot persist in 2026.
I believe YouTube growth is the most important thing local TV can pursue right now — not just for success, but for survival.
Howdy! My name is Ryan Welton, and I’m a lifelong journalist with two decades in local TV news. I now work as a consultant and can be reached at ryan@doabledigitalmedia.com.
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