YouTube is planning a major overhaul of its connected TV app, adding new features and a completely new look, as it seeks to defend its leading position in streaming across other streaming platforms such as Netflix, Max and Disney+.

The company announced its plans on Wednesday during a Made on YouTube event in New York.

The new TV app includes a number of updated features. Some of these could change the way creators categorize their videos. They can now organize shows by episodes and seasons, similar to what viewers have come to expect from subscription video platforms.

And YouTube is rolling out what it calls “immersive previews,” a cinematic video trailer that plays automatically when a user navigates to a creator’s page.

“When we launched Primetime Channels (YouTube’s third-party subscription offering) in the main app, we wanted to make sure that if you search for (HBOs) House of the Dragon and you go to that channel page, you want to look by season and episode and you want to have this really rich, immersive channel page experience that people have come to expect from episodic content,” said Christian Oestlien, VP of product management at YouTube, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter“It turns out that a lot of our creators are really leaning into that format as well. They’re making 20- to 40-minute videos, there’s kind of a seasonal arc to it, there’s multiple episodes to it, so we give them the tools to really create what we call Creator Show Pages, so that if you’re a fan of Michelle Khare, you can go to her channel page and really just have a kind of binge-episodic experience that I think the lean back TV environment really lends itself to.”

The result is that creator pages look much more like the pages of series a user might see on Netflix or Max.

“There are a lot of best practices in the space, in terms of what’s really visually compelling,” Oestlien adds. “But fundamentally, we’re trying to make sure that we’re ultimately delivering for creators and helping them achieve the vision of what they want for their programming in the living room.”

According to Khare, the changes are significant.

“As a creator, we have the control to make great content or the best content that we can, but when you see your stuff being represented so beautifully in this capacity, I really think it just puts us further up the playing field compared to the big streaming services,” she says. THR“For me, seeing the mock-ups was similar to what some people feel when they first see themselves on a movie poster or on a billboard as a participant in a theatrical release.”

“It’s a great way for the audience to discover a creator and a show, just like you would if you were browsing on another streaming service, where you watch one episode, you can clearly see the full season, and it can encourage the viewer to keep watching, or even download the entire season before their flight leaves to watch,” she adds.

YouTube will also roll out features to help creators grow their businesses, such as an easier and more prominent subscribe feature in the TV app while videos are playing, and a feature that generates QR codes from links in video descriptions.

YouTube hopes this change will help increase creators’ subscribers and boost engagement as users leverage the QR code functionality.

YouTube says the immersive previews, QR code links and new subscription functionality will launch this year, while episode and season functionality will roll out gradually starting in 2025.

“It means a lot to (creators) that YouTube has really become such a significant platform on television, and it allows them to, I think, really think about their programming and their content and their investment in their communities on the same level that traditional media might talk about,” Oestlien said. “It helps them build a community, a fan base, and ultimately it helps them drive really big businesses, which sustains them on our platform and ultimately beyond.”

And it’s certainly true that YouTube on television has become a huge business.

According to the Nielsen Gauge, YouTube accounted for 10.6 percent of connected TV viewing in August, compared to 7.9 percent for Netflix and 3.1 percent for Prime Video (all others followed at less than 3 percent).

And YouTube says the number of creators who get the majority of their revenue from TV is up 30 percent year-over-year, and over the past three years, the number of top creators who get the majority of their viewing time on the big screen has grown more than 400 percent. That can be attributed not only to YouTube’s footprint in the living room, but also to the premium advertisers willing to pay to reach consumers across the TV screen.

But it’s also an emotional change, one that makes the app feel more premium while still staying true to what makes YouTube, YouTube.

“I grew up watching my favorite shows on television, with my family, with my friends, and most of my media experience was that communal living room experience,” Khare says. “When someone sits down to watch something on TV, there’s an expectation of quality.”

According to Oestlien, YouTube took into account the concerns of the creators when developing the new app. According to him, it has been years in the making.

“I hear from a lot of them anecdotally that the primary way they consume YouTube now is on the big screen. So they’re also talking to me as a consumer, not just a creator, in terms of what their expectations are and the experience they’re looking for,” he says. “So I think a lot of what you’re actually seeing come to life is what they’ve been asking for: How can we elevate the creator experience in the living room, so that it feels much more premium, really great content for emerging creators.”

“It’s things like bringing Shorts into the living room,” he continues. “That was something we weren’t entirely sure how it was going to play out, but we knew that creators were seeing growth in the living room, and a lot of the creators who are focused on Shorts wanted to see that experience come to life in the living room to reach those audiences, and so we’ve invested a lot in making sure that Shorts is a really great experience in the living room, and we’re seeing really great adoption there.”