Watch time and episodic content

According to Peng, Insider was able to increase the consumption of its YouTube videos not by increasing the volume of its output—it produced roughly 80 videos last month, as is its standard—but by changing the kind of video it produces.

Rather than emphasize short-form or social video, beginning in 2020, the publisher began using watch-time as its north star metric. It also started weighing consumption data more heavily when making content decisions and investing in series that attract larger viewerships.

These shifts led the publisher to produce more episodic series, long-form video and original reporting, according to Peng, with many of its episodes running between eight to 25 minutes in length.

The resulting franchises, such as Risky Business, which chronicles dangerous jobs around the globe, and Food Wars, where hosts compare food items in different countries, translate better to CTV screens than bite-sized video. They also encourage repeat visits and typically generate longer watching sessions.

Risky Business, for example, has 117 episodes and more than 5 million cumulative views. One recent episode, US vs. UK McDonalds, was released one month ago and has 1 million views.

Other series, such as So Expensive, which examines why certain goods and services are able to sell for high costs, and World Wide Waste, which details some of the more wasteful byproducts of modern living, translate the signature virality of the Insider brand into video.

CPMs on CTV

The CPMs on CTV are also typically higher than desktop or mobile viewing, even for the same content, according to U of Digital founder Shiv Gupta.

“Many advertisers specifically target CTV devices and are willing to pay a premium for the big screen, household, co-viewing, less skippable, high completion rate, maximum viewability real estate in the living room,” Gupta said.

Still, a number of factors can affect the final CPM, and Insider declined to specify whether its increased consumption of CTV has led to more advertising revenue.

The depressed economic climate has lowered advertising demand across the board, and ad revenue on CTV can be subject to multiple intermediaries—including device providers like Roku and Samsung, according to John Rogers, the vice president of business development at Nexxen.

“The raw CPMs of CTV are higher, but if you only get a share of a share of a share, the takeaway pay can end up pretty even,” Rogers said.