Long Videos Getting Longer Legs On YouTube

Short videos are still extremely popular among social video creators. But these individual influencers are actually uploading more YouTube videos that run 20 minutes or longer. Tubular Labs recently shared data with Digiday’s Tim Peterson showcasing the steady growth of longer-form videos.

• Creators have uploaded increasing numbers of videos running 20 minutes or longer dating back to at least 2022; Tubular shows a 56% increase in those uploads from the second half of 2022 to the first half of 2024.
• Overall uploads have also risen in that timeframe, up 10% from 362.3 million to 400 million.
• Peterson talked to a host of different creators at VidCon about the rise of longer videos, and it appeared that some successful influencers were finding more engagement with fewer, longer videos with high-quality production over shorter formats.