Colin and Samir’s Videos Got 163% Longer in 2023

Connected TVs played a major role

Good morning. 2023 was an unforgettable year. Samir and I are feeling nothing but gratitude for the creators who joined us on our channel and for everyone who tuned in. Each year we share notable metrics from our YouTube Studio—that’s what we’re doing here today. The goal is to show you what worked for us in hopes that you can take some lessons for your channel. We’re looking forward to telling more stories from the world of creators with you all in 2024.

Also: Read to the bottom to see who won our giveaway.

Under the Hood: What We Learned in 2023

We sat down with Emma Chamberlain for our longest interview this year—2 hours and 49 minutes / Colin and Samir

Our Year by the Numbers

  • 25 new episodes

  • 39,328,211 long-form video views

  • 272,236 subscribers added

  • 16.6M hours of watch time

  • 26:19 average view duration (AVD) on past-year episodes

Top Performers

Most viewed episode: An Unfiltered Conversation with MrBeast at 6.3M views and 32:25 AVD

Traveling to Greenville has become an annual tradition for us. Each time, we’re left in awe of how big YouTube videos and companies can get.

Practical advice MrBeast gave us: With the autoplay feature on mobile, Jimmy told us he makes sure that the first few seconds of his videos match the thumbnail, have subtitles and are incredibly visual to hook a viewer, especially with the sound off.

Highest Average View Duration: An Unfiltered Conversation with Brittany Broski at 45:11 minutes AVD

Brittany was not only hilarious, but also ultra-transparent when it came to the inner workings of her business. Her transparency has also led her to have one of the most dedicated and loyal communities on YT right now, it’s why she’s finding so much success launching new formats like Royal Court.

The Biggest Change We’re Seeing

YouTube is the new TV. Our stats paint quite the picture:

  • 300% increase in views on TVs from 2021 → 2023

  • 800% increase in AdSense revenue generated from TV viewership from 2021 → 2023

  • 470% increase in watch time hours on TVs from 2021 → 2023

Our viewers watched for longer on the big screen: 38% of viewers watched our long-form videos on mobile phones in 2023, and 31% watched on connected TVs. The key difference was in AVD, though—AVD was 14:34 on mobile phones versus 38:56 on TVs.

We pushed the limits of length this year: Two years ago, I never could have imagined uploading an almost three-hour video like we did with Emma Chamberlain. Clearly this strategy worked: Our AVD nearly doubled from 13:06 minutes to 25:59 minutes from 2022 to 2023. TV is a relatively new surface for creators and one where the viewer expects to sit for long periods of time. As our episodes got longer, this trend worked in our favor.

It also helped contribute to the 47.8% increase in AdSense revenue we saw from 2022 to 2023.

Our long-form uploads have increased in median duration every year since 2016, though that metric roughly quadrupled from 2022 to 2023. With that jump came our strongest watch time per video yet.

We Published Our Most Viewed Video Ever

Our Instagram Reel about the new Ray-Ban Meta glasses was shared 1,082,464 times and became our most viewed video ever with 59.2M views. 

Context: We increased our focus on Instagram this year, specifically with Reels. The built-in messaging aspect of Instagram makes the platform inherently more conversational and our videos more shareable. The IG DM allows for videos to operate as units of conversation, which is very different from Shorts / TikToks. Even when we had a big episode on YouTube, we’d look to Instagram (and TikTok) to see what people were saying about it.

Something That Really Worked

In 2023, this newsletter grew by 65,000+ readers, up 145%. 

Our biggest growth moments came from releasing ephemeral giveaway videos to our channel that were made private after 24 hours. The most recent one added 15,822 new readers to our community.

Speaking of which: it’s time to announce the winner of our creator starter kit that was hand selected by our editors Jesse & Taiga….

Maxwell S.

Congrats on winning! and thanks for reading The Publish Press— check your email, send us your address so we can ship you the kit.

Thank you again to everyone who watched, listened, read, and replied this year. Reply with a guest you wanna see on the show next year.

Where You Watch

Where do you, a Publish Press reader, typically watch 'The Colin and Samir Show?' Click one to vote.

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Thanks to Julian Saliani for contributing to the data analysis in this story!

📊 Publish Press Worthy Stats

Your Publish Press writers are wrapping up 2023 with a list of all-important metrics from our action-packed year (some more accurate than others).

  • 105,000+ words written. No Google Docs were harmed in the making of this newsletter.

  • 400+ stories sent. The Beehiiv bees kept busy.

  • ± 200 WeWork kombuchas drinken. This newsletter runs on probiotics.

  • 1,000 em dashes added / 500 removed in edits. What can we say—it’s the perfect punctuation.

  • 55 unique sponsors. We’re incredibly grateful for each and every one of you!

Thanks for reading this year, and we’ll see you in 2024.

🎁 Share the Press

When you refer new readers to the Press, you earn merch from the Press Publish shop.

*Here’s your unique link to share: {{rp_refer_url}}

You currently have {{rp_num_referrals}} referrals. You're only {{rp_num_referrals_until_next_milestone}} away from receiving {{rp_next_milestone_name}}.

*Please do not use fake email addresses — they will not qualify as referrals. Thank you!