End screens vs pinned comment for the next-video pull

End screens vs pinned comment for the next-video pull
Heard from a retention-obsessed editor: end screens are getting outperformed by a pinned comment + verbal callout on his channel.
— End screens fire in the last 20 seconds — exactly when your weakest retention viewers have already bailed
— A pinned 'watch this next' with a timestamped hook catches the people who finish AND the comment-scrollers, a different slice
Confidence: medium — it's one channel's data, but the logic holds across a few I've heard from.
For a channel like yours: keep the end screen for the algorithm signal, but stop treating it as your main next-video driver. The pin and the spoken CTA move more clicks.