YouTube TV’s multiview is becoming an option for all content types
YouTube has announced that its multiview feature will expand to select non-sport content.
YouTube revealed yesterday – as part of its 20th birthday celebrations – that it will soon be expanding its multiview feature to content beyond just sports content. In the next few weeks, users will be able to begin experimenting with “building their own multiview”, starting off with a small group of popular channels.
Multiview was originally launched on YouTube TV back in 2023, and became a big hit with sports fans who enjoyed viewing multiple NFL games or NCAA basketball tournaments. The feature lets users watch four different videos at once, on one single screen. Although that sounds quite hectic, it makes sense for people keeping track of several sporting events at once, or viewers who perhaps want different commentary alongside a game.
When it comes to non-sports related content, however, it’s less immediately obvious how usable multiview might be. Perhaps if you’re watching your favourite reaction videos while also following along to a craft tutorial, and enjoying some looping visuals for added ambience?
An example given by YouTube showed a screen featuring videos playing by ESPN’s Sports Center, The Weather Channel, Law & Order, and Chopped (Food Network). This could be a hint at the select group of popular channels that the expansion will include.
This expansion of the multiview feature comes as YouTube plans a major redesign of its TV app – making it resemble Netflix more closely by displaying more paid content. Focussing more heavily on its TV app makes sense for YouTube, since people are engaging with the platform more on TVs than on their phones. To put this into perspective, YouTube claimed a staggering 11.1% share of total TV viewership in the US in December 2024 – more than Netflix and Amazon Prime.
“The next few weeks” is the closest thing to a timeline that’s been shared by YouTube on the multiview expansion. Other features that were announced alongside multiview include 4x playback speed for Premium subscribers, as well as an expansion of voice-reply comments for creators.