YouTube recently turned 20 and it brought with it a UI change that some users testing the web player found, shall we say, less than ideal. Now, the company has announced some latest improvements targeting the YouTube experience on big screens, specifically for smart TVs and gaming consoles.
Be careful not to confuse YouTube on TV, which is the main YouTube app made for smart TVs and gaming consoles, with YouTube TV, the separate live TV streaming service. To start, YouTube is adding a bunch of new "shelves," which are rows of suggested or relevant content on the main screen. For example, there is a "Continue your search" shelf that pops up your three most recent searches so you can quickly jump back into them.
Music lovers get dedicated shelves like "Listen again" for revisiting favorite tracks and "Live performances, remixes, and covers" to find different versions of songs you like. There is also a shelf for content from "From your top channels" and one for "Primetime Channels" content if you are subscribed to those.
Organizing content better extends to podcasts and Shorts. Users will now find a Podcasts tab in their library for easy access to shows. Shorts, the platform's short-form video format, are getting their own row in the Watch Next feed and a shelf in the Subscriptions tab, splitting them out from longer videos for a cleaner look.
Beyond just finding things, watching itself is getting a little upgrade. Previously, looping a video was only a thing for playlists, but now YouTube says you can loop "all VOD content." You just need to select the Loop setting from the Playback Settings menu. Previews are also getting more prominent, with expanded inline previews on channel, subscription, and topic pages, and the official rollout of "Immersive Channel Previews" that show full-screen backgrounds and video snippets on channel headers.
While most of these changes are for the viewer, YouTube also included a note about a new feature for creators. They now have access to a "Device Type" card in YouTube Studio Analytics on mobile and desktop.
This card shows creators' watch time broken down by the four device types: mobile, computer, TV, and tablet.
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