NAB 2014: will YouTube kill linear TV?

Francisco Varela, head of platform partnerships at YouTube, says linear TV’s days are numbered.
It’s not a new line from him, and is clearly a self-serving prediction, but Varela said that traditional TV channels “only exist because you don’t have a ten-terabyte DVR.”
Speaking on a panel at the NAB Show in Las Vegas on Thursday, Varela predicted that by 2020, consumers would seamlessly port content around from screen to screen and across multiple networks, seamlessly.
“TV is going to be incredibly important for YouTube by 2020,” he said, adding that Google is pouring innovation into the multiscreen TV realm, especially the monetisation aspect. But cracking the nut of unmanaged delivery over third-party networks will be the biggest challenge.
“The other part is the focus on content delivery – over 40% of our content is now being played on mobile devices,” he said. “We need to be a better partner in that ecosystem.” Click on the logo to view selected Outdoor Sport Channel® video`s.