A visit to YouTube these days shows so many professionally produced
channels that it could be confused with a TV guide. There are channels
for ABC News, Taylor Swift, Nike Football, America's Test Kitchen and
the Obama for America campaign.
The oddball videos of gurgling babies,
teenagers crashing their skateboards and synchronized wedding dances
are still there. But they have been increasingly buried under what
YouTube calls original channels polished, highly produced videos
financed by YouTube. It is part of YouTube's strategy, started a year
ago, to lure television viewers and advertisers by helping to produce
high-quality videos that cater to niche interests.
Now Google,
which owns YouTube, is stepping up that effort. On Monday, it plans to
announce that it is adding more than 50 original channels to the 100 it
has introduced in the last year and expanding original channels to
France, Germany and Britain.
Other online video platforms
including Amazon.com, Netflix and Hulu are also trying to compete for
viewers by creating original content. But transforming from platform to
producer has been challenging for all, including Google. And it is hard
to argue that YouTube, or any other video platform, is on a path to soon
replace television whether for viewers, content makers or advertisers.
"There
are not any successes you can point to and say, this happened because
of Google's investment," said James L. McQuivey, who studies digital
video and television at Forrester. "What they've learned is that they
haven't invested enough."
As part of the new effort, Google is
investing a fresh $200 million in the channels on top of the $100
million it invested last year to market the shows, pay for production
equipment and, in some cases, pay the full production costs.
The
new channels, which will carry advertising and be available free,
include producers with major media experience. ESPN has a sports
channel, Grantland; Sarah Silverman and Michael Cera have a comedy
channel, Jash; and Everyday Health has a beauty and health channel,
Daily Glow. There are also smaller, online-only producers, like
Tastemade and PopSugar.
"I believe that every interest will, at
some point, have a channel serving that interest," said Robert Kyncl,
global head of content at YouTube. "People are building channels and
creating audiences, which is something they couldn't do before in such
numbers."
YouTube says that its push in this area has already created successes.
The
top 25 original channels average more than a million views a week,
according to the company, and in the year since original channels were
introduced, people have increased the hours they spend watching YouTube
each month to four billion from three billion.
Several YouTube
video producers, including AwesomenessTV, StyleHaul and Blip.tv, have
received venture capital financing. Some have been acquired by big
entertainment companies, including Nerdist Industries by Legendary
Entertainment and Revision3 by Discovery Communications. And
YouTube-financed channels have attracted prominent advertisers like
Procter & Gamble, Toyota and American Express, though it did not
give specific ad revenues.
Even so, YouTube is nowhere close to being the default home for high-quality video, analysts say.
Video
producers, Mr. McQuivey said, "are interested in this, but they're not
about to risk giving up a pilot on NBC in order to do a new YouTube
channel."
Advertisers, meanwhile, "still hold the 30-second spot
on a pedestal, and the idea you would put that creative content into
that inferior channel still bothers a lot of them."
Though
advertisers will increase their spending on digital video ads 46.5
percent to $2.9 billion this year, that is a small fraction of the $64.5
billion they will spend on television, according to eMarketer.
And viewers who have spent decades in front of their televisions are not about to throw them out in favor of YouTube, he said.
YouTube has learned the same thing, so it is going after younger people who have grown up online.
"The
thing we learned is it's certainly best to fish where the fish are,"
Mr. Kyncl said. "In terms of making investment decisions and putting
dollars at risk, we're going to focus on audiences of 35 and below, who
are already on YouTube."
As a result, much of YouTube's original
programming may seem foreign to older audiences, like casual comedy
skits full of Internet references. But other programming has attracted
critical acclaim and Hollywood stars. WIGS, for example, shows
TV-quality dramas aimed at women that star actresses like Julia Stiles
and writers and directors like Marta Kauffman, a creator of "Friends."
In
addition to financing production, YouTube sells ads for the video
producers. It takes its initial investment out of the ad revenue.
"That's
their secret sauce, a huge sales force all over the world," said Jim
Louderback, chief executive of Revision3, which will have a new tech
channel on YouTube. "We're pretty excited that huge sales force is going
to be spending time finding revenue opportunities for the stuff we're
doing."
Video producers say that in addition to financial support,
YouTube offers a way to bypass television's frustratingly slow
production schedule.
Nerdist Industries recently decided to make a
music video with the Fraggle Muppets. Three weeks later, a music video
was on YouTube, made with the band Ben Folds Five, the actors Anna
Kendrick and Rob Corddry, the Jim Henson Company and Chris Hardwick, the
television actor and founder of Nerdist.
"What we found amazing
about the opportunity was to go from ideation to production and having
content in front of our fan base in a ridiculously short amount of time,
and content that's produced at television-level quality," said Peter
Levin, chief executive of Nerdist Industries.
Another contrast
with traditional television is that it is much easier for video creators
to get a start and gain a following. YouTube says that minorities who
have historically been underserved by network television, for instance,
have popular channels on the site, like Michelle Phan's Fawn and NuevOn,
a Spanish-language Hispanic pop culture channel.
"There's a giant
pot of money that is controlled by the broadcast and cable television
industries, and it's because there's comfort and scale and
predictability," said David Grant, president of PopSugar Studios and a
former president of Fox TV Studios. "There's a fair amount of ways to go
years before the online video industry has enough scale to move those
dollars over. But it is inevitable."
Copyright 2012 The New York Times News Service