YouTube tightens its grip on entertainment distribution

Simon Owens flags two moves that show studios now treat YouTube as a distribution network rather than a marketing channel: ESPN is launching a kids channel to age a new demographic into its main offering, and YouTube is building an audiobook feature to answer Spotify's encroachment on Audible. For publishers the signal is blunt: every studio should be building on the world's largest TV streaming app without cannibalising its owned channels.