When YouTube launched nearly two decades ago, its first clip was a grainy video of co-founder Jawed Karim speaking to the camera while standing in front of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo.

Not exactly must-see TV.

Since, then the online video giant has increasingly been the entertainment of choice for billions of people. And while the Google-owned service is still often thought of as being the destination for people watching funny short videos on their smartphones, the way that Americans watch it has changed in a big way.

People are increasingly choosing to watch YouTube on their connected TVs rather than on laptops and mobile devices, treating it more and more like a regular television destination.

The San Bruno, Calif.-based video giant said more than 150 million people in the U.S. are watching YouTube on connected TV screens every month, citing December 2022 data. That’s up 11% from 2021. YouTube is consistently the most watched streaming service in the U.S. on a TV in the U.S. every month, even beating Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video since February 2023, according to Nielsen. The service accounts for nearly 10% of television viewing, the data firm said.

According to research firm Emarketer, U.S. adults spend 36 minutes each day watching YouTube, with 17 of those minutes on a connected TV, four minutes on a desktop or laptop computer and 15 minutes on a mobile device.

A variety of content is driving the company’s evolution. YouTube said TVs accounted for more than 50% of the watch time for its Coachella livestream this year, which is higher than ever before. Views of Shorts, clips that are 60 seconds or less, on connected TVs more than doubled last year, YouTube said.

“We’ve invested in making sure that YouTube really captures the totality of the experience that people want,” said Christian Oestlien, YouTube’s vice president of product management for connected TV. “What we hear from our users is they want to be able to watch their favorite creators but also highlights from their favorite sporting events, listen to their favorite artist and watch their favorite podcast and do it all in this one contained experience.”

At a time when consumers are choosing between multiple streaming services, YouTube has an advantage of having a wide variety of options, from live sports to user-generated videos. The company said the increase in TV watch time comes as connected TVs are becoming more widely available.

TV screen time can be helpful to streamers wishing to court more advertising dollars. This week, television networks and streaming services Amazon and Netflix made gala presentations to advertisers, showing off the programming they have coming up.

YouTube on Wednesday presented to advertisers new features such as branded QR codes and non-skippable assets on connected TVs.

“YouTube is wanting to position themselves not just as a digital advertising option, they want advertisers to see them on the same advertising footing as any other streaming service,” said Brett Sappington, founder of Dallas-based media and insights firm Sappington Media.

YouTube has introduced features to improve the television viewing experience, including the option to watch Coachella performances through a four-way split screen. The company also has shopping options.

“This isn’t my dad’s TV or my grandma’s TV,” Oestlien said. “This is TV rethought for a new generation.”

YouTube video creators have also embraced TV viewing, Oestlien said. In the last three years, the number of top YouTube creators who receive most of their watch time from TV screens has quintupled, YouTube said.

YouTube has also gotten a boost from its deal to become the home of pro football’s “NFL Sunday Ticket” game package. Fans will watch live games on YouTube on Sunday, then come back and watch clips through its video library or commentary from its creators, Oestlien said.

“It really becomes this surround-sound experience where, as a football fan, you can come to YouTube any day of the week,” he said.

YouTube and other streaming services have been competing for sports league rights in order to increase viewership. Amazon has the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” games and has bid for a package of NBA matches. On Wednesday, Netflix announced it had secured two Christmas NFL games for 2024.

Although California has some of the toughest labor laws in the country, a new study has found workers routinely suffer violations while on the job.

A team of researchers from UC San Francisco and Harvard University earlier this year surveyed 980 California workers at dozens of the state’s largest retail, food and other service sector companies. The workers reported frequent abuses over pay, work schedules and other issues.

The study found, for example, that 41% of the workers surveyed had experienced at least one serious violation of federal labor in the last year, such as being required to work off the clock, not being paid overtime, or being paid less than minimum wage, according to the report, which was released this week.

Violations around paid sick leave and meal breaks were also common, the researchers found. More than half of workers, 58%, were not given proper rest breaks.

All told, 91% of the workers surveyed experienced at least one violation in the last year, the study found.

The findings seemed at odds with the fact that California has led the way in raising labor standards, said one of the study’s authors, Daniel Schneider, a professor of social policy and sociology at Harvard He and his co-author, Kristen Harknett, a UCSF sociology professor, wanted to understand why the state’s rigorous laws weren’t doing more to protect workers from abuse.

The survey of workers, Schneider said, showed it was common for workers not to report problems. Many, he said, “have been robbed of their time and their wages and the vast majority do not come forward.”

Schneider said the study found that workers who came forward to report problems to someone inside their company were often met with retaliation or other negative consequences, and that workers are unlikely to seek help from regulatory bodies such as the state labor commissioner.

“This is not to say that the laws are ineffective, but that their full promise isn’t realized when they are being violated so routinely,” Schneider said. “We need a robust system of enforcement to ensure these labor laws are being enforced and complied with.”

The results of the new study come against the backdrop of renewed debate over a controversial California law known as the Private Attorneys General Act that gives workers the right to file lawsuits against their employers over back wages and to seek civil penalties on behalf of themselves, other employees and the state of California.

An initiative seeking to gut the act will appear on the ballot in November, the culmination of a long-running effort by business groups to scrap it.

Backers of the ballot initiative argue the law has resulted in a slew of lawsuits that small businesses and nonprofits have little ability to fight, and say that the long, costly lawsuits workers must pursue result in their getting less money than if they had filed complaints through state agencies.

Although not an expert on the law, Schneider said he believes there should be “more avenues for workers to come forward, to pursue some kind of redress, not fewer.”

The recent study is limited in scope, Schneider said, and does not capture the experiences of undocumented workers or those in domestic, agricultural and construction jobs where violations may be even more common.

Since the survey focused on workers at large firms, it leaves out service sector workers employed at smaller firms, which also likely experience violations at higher rates, he said.

Another study published this month by researchers at Rutgers University found that minimum wage violations have more than doubled in some major metro areas in California since 2014.

Workers in the Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego metro areas who had been paid below minimum wage lost on average about 20% of the money they were owed, or as much as $4,000 a year, the study found.

In the San Francisco area, losses were even more steep, with workers losing an average of $4,300 to $4,900 annually to minimum wage violations, according to the study.

In the fourth straight week of layoff announcements, Tesla said it is now concentrating on reducing staff at its Bay Area facilities as part of a larger move to cut jobs globally.

State filings show that Tesla is planning to lay off 378 employees at its Fremont facilities and 233 at its Palo Alto offices.

The layoffs will occur over a 14-day period starting June 20.

An email to Tesla officials requesting comment was not immediately returned.

The layoffs come as the company struggles with flagging sales, top executives fleeing, a declining stock price and quality problems with the new Cybertruck. The low-cost Model 2 recently promised by Chief Executive Elon Musk also appears to be dead.

It is not immediately clear which positions are being cut. The San Francisco Chronicle reported they would include technicians, electricians, software engineers, plumbers and athletic trainers.

On April 15, Musk announced in an email to staff that Tesla was cutting more than 10% of its workforce, citing job overlap and the need to reduce costs.

A week later, Telsa said it was laying off 3,332 workers at its facilities and offices in Fremont, Palo Alto, Burbank and Lathrop.

Including the latest cuts, Telsa has announced 3,933 layoffs this year in California.

“As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity,” Musk wrote in the April email.

“As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally,” he continued. “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done.”