​With Jimmy Fallon taking over “The Tonight Show” and Seth Meyers moving into “Late Night,” there has been plenty of coverage lately of Fallon’s dominance of the late-night viral space and how his show lends itself to short YouTube clips. But another late-night host has been using the viral video space to his advantage for years - lately by pranking people into thinking they’re not from him.

Jimmy Kimmel, amidst his week of live shows at SXSW, sat down with Re/code to speak about his recent viral phenomenons and his focus on making a TV show, not just one-off video clips.

In the past year, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has been behind a few of the biggest viral hits on YouTube, including the wolf in Sochi and the twerking girl who set herself on fire. After posting them online, Kimmel stepped back and waited for the general public to find, tweet and promote them. The videos, though not immediately promoting his show, were revealed later to be hoaxes from Kimmel, sparking an entirely new round of shares and free publicity in the process.

But the YouTube strategy is only a small part of ABC’s plans for Kimmel. When his show came out with the “I’m F**king Matt Damon and Ben Affleck” videos years ago, Kimmel and his producers realized that YouTube was a natural outlet for them, where they ended up being shared millions of times. While he says that video clips like those allow more people to see what he’s doing on air, he wants to keep his focus first and foremost on the on-air show.

“I always remind our staff, and our writers, that we’re not in the business of making viral videos,” said Kimmel. “We’re in the business of making a television show. And if these things lend themselves to the Internet, then great. But that’s not our intent.”

And he says that even though the TV industry is certainly in flux, that’s not about to change anytime soon. While there will always be an audience for broadcast TV, according to Kimmel, that audience is going to diminish year after year, so it’s best for those on TV to be prepared.

“The fact of the matter is, the amount of money we make from selling commercials on television is 100 times as much from what we make from people watching our YouTube videos,” said Kimmel. “And until those things even out somewhat, we’re going to be focused on television.”

His newest YouTube hit, a parody of HBO’s “True Detective” featuring Seth Rogen that was released online this morning, is quickly racking up views:

Read more at Re/code.

Brief Take: As Kimmel says, it’s important for networks to make TV first, then spin digital properties out of that creative process. But looking ahead, that might not always be the case, and shows like Kimmel’s are well-positioned to take advantage of that growing space.

[Image courtesy of Re/code]

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