In my last essay, I described the slow and subtle, yet tectonic shift in the global TV industry away from American hegemony towards a more diverse, locally strong and nuanced industry. Today we accelercate the pace and I propose a concept for cross-border alliances as the bedrock of an industry that emancipates itself from any kind of moguldom. In a kind ironic twist, the epiphany of this concept struck me while hearing lately more often about the so called “YouTube” threat.
One of the favorite sentences you hear (or more often read on a Linkedin post) is that everyone who is in TV must now join the YouTube bandwaggon. It is usually delivered with a sense of ‘I know the only recipe that you ever need to get well’ and is often met by an audience in awe and fascination that they have been allowed to partake in such outstanding wisdom. I will dissect this ‘industry dogma’ with clear-eyed pragmatism. In a further step I will show that it is now the right time that all executives in the European TV ecosystem – and frankly, everony else in the global industry beyond – needs to wake up from its trance to forge strong regional alliances and engineer their own homegrown models instead of bowing to industry prophets, media moguls or tech plutocrats.
The Myth of the YouTube Takeover
YouTube is seen as the new television and broadcasters who are ignoring it, are dinosaurs sleepwalking toward extinction. You hear it at every industry event. You read it in every trend report. You see it splashed across PowerPoints by industry evangelists with the confidence of prophets and the substance of a LinkedIn poll. But if we strip away the theatrics and trace the data back to its origins, a more complex and more empowering story begins to emerge.
No doubt about it that the numbers are striking. YouTube reaches over 90% of U.S. 18–34-year-olds. It now accounts for more than 15% of global internet traffic. And in the U.S., YouTube TV has surpassed 8 million subscribers, overtaking many traditional cable networks.
That is USA, and that is exactly where we should draw the line: Europe is not the U.S. There is no equivalent impact of YouTube TV in Europe. Linear television still reaches 70–80% of the population daily in countries like Germany, France, and Italy. Trust in public broadcasters like ARD, France Télévisions, and the BBC still hovers between 60 and 75%. And cultural and linguistic diversity, which is the very fabric of European media life, makes it structurally harder for any single platform to dominate the way U.S. platforms do at home.
What is now portrayed as a global threat with the authority of having it picked up at a panel in Cannes, is largely a U.S. disruption cycle, exported via industry media and Linked celebrity punditry. The danger is not in the fact, that such a trend and market inroad from YouTube exists. The danger is that Europe and many other markets adopt the diagnosis without checking the patient. And frankly, some European execs still repeat these narratives like a parrot in a circus act.
The Real Risk Is in Giving Up before You even Start Fighting
The discussion whether you should be on YouTube or not is misleading. Because, of course, you should if its creating extra revenue and you addressing new audience segment. You’d be a fool, not too. But the real focus of this discussion should be not about counting the trees but looking at the larger ecosystem of the forest. It is about the Youtube model and how it is another way of US Big Tech eating into foreign land. And if you give in to this form of colonialization, you import not just the technology, but the ecosystem. You will end up counting trees of a foreign farmer.
We must hence look what really is at stake here:
- Who controls discovery and attention (algorithmic gatekeeping).
- Who owns the monetization pipeline (Google’s ad tech stack).
- Who dictates creator economics (a U.S.-anchored revenue system).
But perhaps most insidiously, the real loss is narrative. If every European decision-maker reads their future through a Californian crystal ball, we stop imagining alternatives. We settle for being implementers rather than inventors. And in doing so, we become not just lazy but complicit.
Europe’s (and the rest of the world’s) Still-Open Window:
You know me: even so I sometimes might sound like the infamous Cassandra and spell doom (which is a trademark of any decent thought leader, I am being told), I am actually a very optimistic (and some would say overly idealistic) person. And hence, I am convinced that Europe still possesses tools the U.S. forfeited long ago. These tools and characteristics will be the elements we need to avoid that we move from old US media moguldom into an era of BigTech moguldom. We have in Europe:
- A strong regulatory tradition (think AVMSD and quota rules).
- Robust public broadcasters with direct audience relationships.
- Creative ecosystems grounded in regional storytelling.
- Data and privacy cultures less susceptible to surveillance capitalism.
- Local funding systems and existing transnational entities
So, dear European media leaders: before you book your next flight to LA to “learn about the future,” maybe take a train to Berlin or Bordeaux and look at what’s already working.
My Vision: A European Streaming and Social Commons
This is Europe’s moment to imagine and build a federated, multilingual streaming and social media infrastructure. One that:
- Integrates streaming, short-form video, and community interaction.
- Operates with algorithmic transparency and user agency.
- Is governed by independent European bodies.
- Embraces open-source infrastructure and co-op models.
- Provides digital identity and single sign-on, like eduGAIN.
- And why not think large and eventually expand it in complete commons media platform that nurtures local content as well as services all users across the continent
Imagine discovering a local creator, debating an issue, and streaming a regional documentary – without feeding a U.S. ad empire. That is more than a naive fantasy. It is a hope for much more needed sovereignty. And it’s damn well overdue.
But It Will Require Courage.
It won’t be easy. Building this ecosystem will demand:
- Political resolve at both EU and national levels.
- Broadcaster leadership that dares to collaborate.
- Public-private consortia that pool tech, funding, and vision.
- New metrics that reward diversity, trust, and discoverability—not just watch time.
It means letting go of the illusion that “best practices” from Palo Alto are universally applicable. It means acting like we still have a stake in our own future, and of course, we do.
Don’t Copy Silicon Valley. Find role models at home.
Europe missed its chance to build the dominant search engine, the flagship social network, and the foundational mobile OS. But the media is still ours to shape. And we can do so by being wiser.
This is a moment for imagination. If Europe dares to look inward, it might just find that its greatest media innovation is not behind it but waiting to be built.
Europe has shown that it can tackle very complicated problems in the past. The very ‘Project Europe’ has been an example of bringing nations together that have fought each other for centuries if not even for as long as we record history. We have managed to build complex technical infrastructures. For example, the SEPA banking system is a European success story, that we have roaming agreements for our mobile phones across Europe, and that we are now can track passport control at all European borders in one system come to mind. We already take programs like the the Schengen Zone, cross-border train booking and Erasmus Student Programme for granted. Yet, it took some bold and visionary leaders to make it happen – and it happened eventually to everyone’s delight.
I am 100% convinced that we can build a pan-european answer to YouTube and Big Tech that is more transparent, more inclusive, more diverse and fairer than what we use now and what TechBros will us ever want to use.
Hence, for those European executives still clutching metrics that mattered in 1995, perhaps it’s time to put the TEDx talking notes down, get your hands dirty, and start building.
For those that dare, contact us and we talk how we can make this vision a reality.
