• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, April 21, 2015

In case you were wondering, YouTube still grabs a huge slice of attention from millions of U.S viewers, and new YouTube data released today emphasizes that point -- and stresses that these viewers seem peculiarly loyal.

Looking at Google Preferred, the collection of YouTube channels that are most viewed, the content giant is reporting today that: “We found that desktop viewers who watch Google Preferred tend to be younger, more likely to be online shoppers in market for products, and importantly...the majority are viewers not reached through other video platforms.”

The report continues: “In fact, we found that nearly one in 10 Google Preferred desktop viewers do not watch traditional TV at all and 90% of them do not visit any of the top five full-episode players.” (That phrase--”full episode players”--is the clunky-but-marginally-quicker way of saying Hulu.com, ABC.com, CBS.com, Fox.com and NBC.com. The moniker doesn’t include Netflix because it doesn’t carry advertising.)

From this, we can conclude, pretty definitely, that these people don’t like broadcast network television. According to these stats, though, these Google Preferred people positively loathe it.

“Younger audiences are also heavily represented on YouTube and on Google Preferred specifically, where viewers skew younger than the online population,” YouTube reports. “We found that 18-34 year-olds who watch video on smartphones go to YouTube first for online video, 2.3 times as likely or more than other platforms.”

The Google Preferred channels represent the 5% of channels that accumulate the most YouTube viewers. It’s exclusive, but it’s not that exclusive--preferred still means thousands of channels. These are the biggest fish in an enormously big pond--because YouTube has an awful lot of channels.

It has reported previously that the operators of a million channels worldwide earn revenue from its partner program, which seems to be a handy way of separating video businesses from the owners of cute, telegenic kitties. Preferred channels, Tubefilter reported a while ago, come from 14 different content categories.

YouTube is releasing the material, no doubt, because the NewFronts are coming soon, and possibly because Facebook today will release its Q1 earnings, which could show its own giant leaps in the online video advertising trade. YouTube is returning to the annual NewFronts dog-and-pony show announcing another year of its Google Preferred channels to advertisers. And while YouTube’s presentation is always way over the top, it looks like as a business, YouTube is going to announce it’s going to keep doing the same thing.  

Its research says Google Preferred desktop viewers are 2.7 times more likely to be in-market online shoppers than the general online population, and they’re 182% times more likely to be in the market for a luxury car, 166% more likely to be looking for apparel, 170% for beauty stuff, and 195% more likely to be looking for computers and tablets. Possibly because they are such YouTube devotees, they are 46% more likely to search for a brand than not-so-crazed YouTube users.

The odd segue paragraph here could start, “But despite how much its users respond enthusiastically to advertising, YouTube is starting a commercial-free premium site...”

Maybe another day.