YouTube, not happy to be just an Internet site, is expanding to the medium it has helped undermine: the boob tube.
On Wednesday, TiVo, the digital video recorder maker, announced that its customers would be able to watch YouTube videos on their TVs using one model of TiVo’s set-top box sometime this year.
Over the past year, it has been possible to watch YouTube videos on the TV through other devices, such as Apple TV. But TiVo, which has more than 4 million subscribers, could make YouTube a TV star.
YouTube has been a thorn in the side of traditional media ever since the video-sharing Web site was created in 2005. Now owned by Google, YouTube has faced criticism and legal trouble that it benefited from visitors copying TV shows and putting them on the site.
YouTube also has hastened the fracturing of how people, especially teens, get their entertainment, with many turning on computers instead of TVs.
Monthly, 66 million viewers watch about 2.6 billion videos on YouTube, accounting for about 57 percent of the 116.7 million monthly online video audience, according to Nielsen Online.
Many people already go to YouTube for the same reason they use TiVo — to be able to watch TV when they want it. But with TiVo, YouTube finally might make it to the main home screen.
