Originating in 2007, the YouTube Awards are annual awards given out in recognition of the best YouTube videos of the preceding year as voted by the YouTube community.[22]
On July 23, 2007 and November 28, 2007, CNN and YouTube produced televised presidential debates in which Democratic and Republican US presidential hopefuls fielded questions submitted through YouTube.[23][24]
In November 2008, YouTube reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television episodes on the site, accompanied by advertisements in a section for US viewers called "Shows". The move was intended to create competition with websites such as Hulu, which features material from NBC, Fox, and Disney.[25][26]
YouTube was awarded a 2008 Peabody Award and cited as being "a’Speakers’ Corner’ that both embodies and promotes democracy".
In early 2009, YouTube registered the domain https://youtube-nocookie.com for videos embedded on United States federal government websites.[29][30]In November the same year, YouTube launched a version of "Shows" available to UK viewers, offering around 4, 000 full-length shows from more than 60 partners.[31]
Entertainment Weekly placed YouTube on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list In December 2009, describing it as: "Providing a safe home for piano-playing cats, celeb goof-ups, and overzealous lip-synchers since 2005."[32]
YouTube introduced an online film rentals service in January 2010, [33] which is currently available only to users in the US, Canada and the UK.[34][35] The service offers over 6, 000 films.[36] In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, including 60 cricket matches of the Indian Premier League. According to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event.[37]
On March 31, 2010, YouTube launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site. Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented: "We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter."[38] In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as "nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined".[39] In May 2011, YouTube reported in its company blog that the site was receiving more than three billion views per day.[40] In January 2012, YouTube stated that the figure had increased to four billion videos streamed per day.[41]
According to May 2010 data published by market research company comScore, YouTube was the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of roughly 43 percent and more than 14 billion videos viewed during May.[42]
In October 2010, Hurley announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of YouTube to take an advisory role, and that Salar Kamangar would take over as head of the company.[43]