YouTube Turns to Creating Programming.

Post contributed by Chelsey Hallett -


YouTube currently has the largest video audience in the world and is the second most-visited website today. Therefore, YouTube has become one of the most successful sites in the history of the Internet. However despite these stats, YouTube is a free service created from user-generated videos. Since YouTube cannot advertise whatever anyone decides to upload, it does not create much revenue.
   Robert Kyncl and Tom Pickett have helped lead YouTube in its successes for the last seven years. Together, they have come up with a plan that will give YouTube more power than other competitors in the online video industry. The plan is to turn YouTube into a cable operator and network. YouTube would be implemented in production and distribution and essentially an equal to Comcast. However, the major difference between the two is that Comcast has 22.4 million subscribers and YouTube has 800 million.
   “I can’t think of anyone more important right now in the entire industry . . . they’re up there with the biggest of the bigs,” says R.J. Williams, who runs an entertainment industry-focused channel on YouTube called Young Hollywood.
   Kyncl and Pickett have a vision to transform YouTube’s current platform into a “generator and seller of quality content” and package this content to sell to advertisers. The content will be packaged through channel strategy. Kyncl and Pickett want to organize the site’s content into categories such as sports, food, music, that will serve like channels on a network. Through this process they believe they can find content worth selling.
   A second part of this plan is YouTube’s recent purchase of Next New Networks, an online video production studio. Along with producing content, it also serves as a training system for upcoming video producers. Another idea for producing revenue is through streaming major studio movies. They want to compete with iTunes and Amazon by having them available for rent.
   The purpose of turning YouTube into a programming giant is to use the advantages of being the largest video site to produce revenue. How can this be done better but through content produced by the general audience? They are the ones who chose what they want to view. It is a genius plan thanks to Kyncl and Pickett.

Source: Beyond Cat Videos: Is YouTube on the bring of becoming a programming star?,  Adweek.com