With the announcement of streaming free, ad-supported TV shows; YouTube has placed itself into direct competition with a number of free streaming platforms including Tubi, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, IMDb TV, Xumo, Plex and NBCU’s Peacock. Initially YouTube is offering 4,000 free TV episodes like “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Andromeda,” and “Heartland”. It’s planning on adding up to 100 more shows/movies each week. YouTube has reached over 135 million people on connected TVs in the U.S. in December 2021.

In the bigger picture of the streaming industry, platforms are moving more toward TV shows instead of movies. New projects that might have been a movie or even a mini series are being turned into bingeable shows to get users to log more hours watching content on their services. Free ad-supported video-on-demand services have been leading the way with video subscriptions growth. In December 2021 the amount of users have more than doubled than the prior year.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/23/youtube-to-stream-free-ad-supported-tv-shows-for-the-first-time/