Dive Brief:

• Traditional TV broadcasters including NBC and ABC drive considerable consumption on Google's digital video platform YouTube, according to a new report from Zefr made available to Marketing Dive. 
• Zefr's "TV 3.0" research found that NBC led other networks in terms of digital viewership with extensions of TV content, including YouTube clips from Jimmy Fallon's late night talk show as well as snippets from the singing competition "The Voice." ABC was the standout leader in terms of video uploads to the platform at 353,000.
• YouTube is ultimately the clear leader in bridging the gap between linear TV and digital video, with 36 billion YouTube views on TV-like content and 284 million social media engagements, Zefr said.

Dive Insight:

Though digital video and TV are more often being positioned as in direct competition for viewers' eyeballs, the Zefr report highlights the synergies between the two and how traditional broadcasters might leverage a digital channel like YouTube to extend the life of TV content and also net the attentions of younger digital natives.    

Zefr went as far as to proclaim YouTube as "powering the next generation of quality, television-like content," as well as offering content creators the benefit of digital insight and measurement. Zefr also pointed to YouTube's "almost infinite amount of premium video content" as a chance for engagement with social audiences.

The Zefr report also acknowledges that, for marketers, video spending is rapidly becoming a single bucket rather than a split stream between linear TV and digital and mobile video. The trend is one that is top of mind for major tech platforms, including YouTube parent Google, which recently opened up programmatic TV ad inventory on its DoubleClick platform in a bid to bridge the gap between digital video and television. 

YouTube is currently weathering issues around brand safety, along with a proliferation of TV-like content from Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, but its role as a leader in the digital video space doesn't appear to be budging anytime soon.