The short answer
Yes, YouTube now reaches an older audience because of the television screen
Yes, YouTube reaches an older audience now, and the reason is the screen it's watched on rather than any shift in who likes video. A large share of viewing happens on the living room television through a smart TV or a streaming box, often with the show on while dinner gets made. That kind of viewing pulls in an older crowd than the phone-in-hand image most agents still carry around. For a Compass agent trying to reach an actual buyer or seller, that's a real change, not a marketing line.
Why YouTube skews older now
The change is the screen, not the audience's taste. For years YouTube meant a phone screen, and phone-first video did lean young. Smart televisions and streaming boxes put a YouTube button right on the remote, and once that button exists, a lot of video watching moves off the phone and onto the television in the living room. People leave it on while they cook, while they wind down, while the room is doing something else. That kind of viewing pulls in an older group of people, and it happens without anyone deciding to "target older buyers." It's just where the watching moved.
The numbers back this up. Pew Research found that 85% of adults 50 to 64 use YouTube, and 64% of adults 65 and older do too, a wider reach in that age group than every platform except Facebook. On the television side, Nielsen data puts YouTube's share of all U.S. TV viewing at 12.7%, the single largest share held by any network or streaming service. People are watching more than a billion hours of YouTube on television screens every day in the U.S., and eMarketer expects more than 180 million Americans to watch YouTube through a connected TV this year.
That matters for a Compass agent because the buyer or seller you actually want to reach, the one further along in age and closer to a real transaction, is sitting in that television audience now. A few years ago that was not a safe thing to say about YouTube. Today it is, and it's the main reason Hugo keeps pointing agents toward YouTube as part of a brand ads package.
What this means for your ad and your delivery
The creative has to survive a television across the room, not a phone at arm's length. A shot that reads fine on a small screen held close can go flat or blurry on a television someone is watching from the couch, and small text or a busy frame just disappears at that distance. Ads built for YouTube's television audience need a clean, simple shot and a message that lands in the first few seconds, because nobody is leaning in to read fine print off a TV. Total streaming now accounts for 47% of all U.S. TV viewing, a record high according to Nielsen, and that couch audience is exactly who a good YouTube ad has to hold.
None of this means the ad has to run wide to be worth it. Delivery on YouTube can still be narrowed down to a single town or a specific market, the same as any other brand ads package Hugo runs. Reaching people on a bigger screen does not require reaching more places. You pick the town, HugoBot sets up the package, and the ad runs there. Later, The Pulse shows how many people in that market saw your name, so you're not guessing whether the television shift actually reached anyone real.
Does YouTube still skew toward a young audience for ad purposes?
No, not the way it used to. The platform moved from something watched mostly on a phone to something watched mostly on a television, and that shift in screen pulled an older audience along with it. Pew Research puts YouTube use at 85% of adults 50 to 64 and 64% of adults 65 and older, a wider reach in that range than any platform except Facebook. A great deal of YouTube viewing now happens on a smart TV or streaming box in the living room, which is a different room and a different viewer than the one most agents picture. The buyer or seller you actually want is genuinely reachable there now.
Does watching YouTube on a television change what the ad itself needs to do?
Yes, the creative has to work from across a room. A shot built for a phone held at arm's length gets lost on a television someone glances at from the couch, so the image needs to read clearly at a distance and the message needs to land fast without small text. This is one of the reasons Hugo builds brand ad creative with the television screen in mind rather than treating every screen the same. It has to hold up at a distance.
If YouTube viewing is shifting to television, does that mean the ad has to run broadly instead of locally?
No, delivery still narrows to one town. Watching on a television changes who is on the other end of the ad, not how tightly Hugo can aim it, so a Compass agent running brand ads on YouTube through a Growth, Scale, or Advisory package still reaches a chosen market rather than a wide region. Reaching a television audience does not mean spraying the ad everywhere. It stays local.