A few days ago it was released that YouTube is partnering with various celebrities and businesses like The Wall Street Journal to launch a series of new YouTube channels, considered to be premium. The owner of YouTube, Google, is spending $100 million to secure the deals for the channels that will be offered. The channels are said to become available starting next month and continue to be rolled out over the next year.
These new YouTube channels will be anchored by various celebrities along with other business partners to provide the content that will be contained on the channels. YouTube has been working on obtaining all the pieces needed for these premium content channels for a while and has not hesitated on spending the money needed to obtain big name celebrities.
It seems that YouTube may be trying to become the cable channel of the future with the moves it is making. I'm not sure if I see this playing out to benefit the company but they probably know a lot more than me. I just think that for something like this in order to make any money they are going to have to charge a fee and I'm not sure if consumers will be willing to pay for such a thing.
Did the article say what kinds of channels these will be? I got the understanding from your blog that they will be mostly celebrity channels (I mean geez, don't we have enough of those by now?). I agree with your viewpoint and don't really see the point of YouTube performing this venture. As you said though, they know a lot more than we do.
ReplyDeleteYou said they may be partnering with the Wall Street Journal, so I'm wondering if this is how the newspapers have decided to monetize online usage. We know newspaper usage has been declining rapidly and that newspapers have been looking for new ways to make money as readers turn more to online reading. Maybe a new kind of YouTube channel is the answer. Another idea is that YouTube may be trying to compete with the upcoming GoogleTV. I believe Apple is developing its own kind of TV as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I'm not sure if this will work out for YouTube but as quickly as media intake is changing, I think it's necessary for them to at least try to develop other ways of engaging viewers.