YouTube Shorts has been a big success on mobile, reaching 30 billion daily views earlier this year. Which is still a far cry from the numbers that TikTok is currently doing. So, YouTube wants to make the feature more accessible for more people. Hence bringing YouTube Shorts over to the big screen. Having YouTube Shorts on TV might seem a bit odd, watching portrait videos on a landscape screen. But the TikTok app is already available on most smart TV platforms, and does really well actually.
YouTube has a major advantage over TikTok when it comes to TVs
It’s true. Google’s YouTube does have a major advantage over TikTok when it comes to the big screen. As YouTube is installed on almost every TV. Versus TikTok, where users need to actually go and download it onto their TV and sign in. That’s something that some may not want to do. TikTok has been quiet about how well its app has done on TVs. And on the Android TV platform, the TikTok app has less than 5 million downloads. Which is very low, considering the Android app has been downloaded over a billion times. It’s unlikely that the interface would change much from what you see on your Android smartphone. It’ll likely show a YouTube Short in the middle of the screen with huge black bars on either side. YouTube can’t really change up the interface much and use those black bars, since it’s a TV and not a touch screen. Adding more buttons would make it tougher to use, since you’re using a remote here.
