Creators keep asking one question: “how long should my video be?” New India-facing data from OML Entertainment suggests the more useful question is what a channel is trying to achieve.
Bilal Ansari, vice president of media and analytics at Only Much Louder (OML) Entertainment, compared medium-format videos (up to 13 minutes) with long-format videos (over 22 minutes) across comedy, lifestyle and vlogging channels. The nine-minute gap between formats deliberately excludes videos that sit awkwardly in the middle.
What the numbers say
- Views: Long videos earn about 16% more views than medium videos per upload.
- Percentage viewed: Medium wins, though the gap is only about five percentage points — roughly 38% versus 33%.
- Watch time: Long-format delivers 2.2x the watch time.
- Subscribers per 1,000 views: Medium edges it, at 0.84 versus 0.67.
That split points to two different jobs: medium video is a reach and subscriber acquisition tool, while long video is a watch-time and engagement engine.
Why CTV makes this more urgent
YouTube India now reaches more than 75 million adults on connected TV, its fastest-growing screen in the country. The same creator can be watched on a phone in a crowded local and on a 55-inch screen at 9 pm. Those two viewers, Ansari notes, do not have the same appetite for content.
Choose length by objective
Ansari offers a thought experiment: two medium videos that together equal the length of one long video would pull around 1.35 million views, against 782,000 views for one long video. Volume and reach clearly favour medium format. But those same two medium videos produce roughly 113,000 hours of watch time, while one long video delivers about 125,000 hours — and watch time tends to drive ad revenue and algorithmic relevance.
For creator teams and brands, the practical rule is to stop hunting for a universal video length. If the goal is reach or faster subscriber growth, plan a cadence of medium-length videos. If the goal is deeper engagement, watch time and revenue, long-format is the stronger play.
Apply it to your content plan
This is not just a creator debate. Brands running YouTube content face the same trade-off. A long explainer or episodic format can build a deeper owned audience and improve average view duration, but it requires more production effort and sustained attention. Medium-length content is easier to complete, easier to publish consistently and better for broad reach. Match runtime to the business metric you are actually accountable for, and treat mobile and CTV viewing as different contexts rather than applying one rule everywhere.
Source: ETBrandEquity.com
