Original Content Coming To YouTube?

itwbennett writes "Rumors of original, professionally-produced content channels coming to YouTube are heating up. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported on it, invoking pro skateboarder Tony Hawk as one of the star attractions. Now The Hollywood Reporter is saying the channels may be launched early next year, with an official announcement coming later this month. 'Originally the story was that YouTube was going to invest $100 million in this content, but now that number has been bumped up to $150 million,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'Does that sound like a lot? Consider Netflix is rumored to be spending $100 million on House of Cards, a single original series that the company is backing. YouTube is said to be delivering 24 channels of original content.'"

Comments

No original content?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean there's currently no original content on YouTube? That means they are stealing 48hrs of video per minute! And they said they weren't evil!

Define professional?

[Daetrin]

As has already been pointed out (sarcastically) there's plenty of original content on YouTube already, so what's new about this is that it's professional? How exactly are they defining professional though?

I expect what they really mean is "content produced by people associated with Hollywood who have been paid upfront by a sponsor." Because to the extent of people creating content as a part time or full time job for which they get paid (either directly or through advertising, merchandising, or some other secondary deal) there's already quite a lot of professional content on YouTube.

Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[RingDev]

Really, $100 million for a retred of yet another generic format TV program? Where the only thing that entertains anymore is putting extreme gore/fear/violence/sex into the content.

We have tons of small-house production studios that are doing amazing work on a shoe-string budget comparitively.

For $100M we could have a dozens full length Journey Quest seasons, or a bunch of new Dorkness Rising movies with even better production quality.

Instead it's "Hey look, Jack Bower disembowls a terrorist and feeds his intestins to a 5 year old to get him to admit that he hid his keys!"

-Rick

Existing original channels?

[Enderandrew]

YouTube already has tons of existing channels of original content. I'm particularly fond o:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Blendtec
http://www.youtube.com/user/MyHarto
http://www.youtube.com/user/EpicMealTime

The difference is that they do this on their own dime, and get money from YouTube after the fact with revenue sharing. I guess this new model would be YouTube sponsoring the production of video to begin with. But YouTube does actually have tons of original content for all kinds of tastes. But I wouldn't say any of it has the production values of what you see on major networks.

Original my ass

[PopeRatzo]

This isn't about "original" content, it's about professional Hollywood content. In other words: "Television".

And there hasn't been anything original on television since...um...well, let me get back to you on that.

This is about the amazing success of amateur-produced material on Youtube making the big corporations livid because it means they're not getting paid. They don't want you to draw a single breath that does not in some way take money out of your pocket and put it in theirs.

Do any of you really feel the need to "fix" Youtube by adding more "professionally produced Hollywood content"?

This is just another example of the corporate world being caught flat-footed by the Internet. It should remind us that if the Internet had been started by the corporate world, all it would be is cable television on your computer. Every single corporate incursion into the Internet makes it less of what people want and more of what the corporations want, which is an endless siphon of wealth from us to them.