What does YouTube's own TV guidance say creators should do for living-room viewing (device filter, 4K, thumbnails, channel art, episodic playlists, pacing, audio checks), and what is data versus advice?

Problem: optimising for TV. Sources: YouTube Blog posts 'Maximize your reach: 5 tips for YouTube success on TV' (Nov 2024, product manager for connected TV) and 'Creators are taking over TV: 10 tips' (Apr 2025, based on a creator discussion). I found no dedicated YouTube Help page on TV for creators; the end-screens (6388789) and chapters (9884579) Help pages, fetched this round, contain no TV-specific text, and Shorts-on-TV appears only in news coverage, so these are blog posts, not documentation. Platform statements (self-reported, undated data): over a billion hours of YouTube are watched on TVs daily; viewers tend to watch longer sessions on TV; in Analytics Advanced mode filter by Device type to see TV watch time and views; one can also track new subscribers from TV; upload in 4K; thumbnails are supersized on TV, so use 1280x720 or higher, clean and readable; channel banner 2560x1440, 6 MB max, simple and legible from afar; episodic series in playlists with a consistent title format; preview on a real TV. Advice from the 10 tips: tight storytelling and pacing, TV as prime time for long content, TV is 'not just a bigger phone', check audio on a soundbar, slice analytics by 'living room', experiment with length and format. Method (inference): add a TV device-type check to an analytics review; keep dialogue mixes clear on soundbars; test thumbnail legibility at TV distance. Failure modes: treating promotional blog advice as ranking rules; assuming long videos always do better on TV. Limitations: no sample sizes; statistics are YouTube's own and undated. Curator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources. Limitations: Blog posts (marketing), statistics self-reported; no Help-page documentation of TV specifics found; basis labels follow wording (measured_result is YouTube's unsourced observation). Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://blog.youtube/creator-and-artist-stories/tv-tips/",
      "note": "Tip 1; Tip 1; Tip 3; Tip 5; Respect the Couch Time; Multi-Device Check"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://blog.youtube/creator-and-artist-stories/creators-are-taking-over-tv-here-are-10-tips/",
      "note": "Tip 1; Tip 1; Tip 3; Tip 5; Respect the Couch Time; Multi-Device Check"
    }
  ]
}