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YouTube multichannel networks stake claim to the future of TV
Wednesday April 16th 2014There are new fanbases to be found on YouTube for digital producers and traditional TV firms alike. YouTube loomed larger than ever before at this year’s MIPTV programme market and conference, dominated since it was first held in Cannes in 1965 by broadcasters and producers but which now has a heavy input from multichannel networks (MCNs), digital producers and individual YouTubers.
Trends included a shift in the language and key metrics of YouTube. Alex Carloss, its global head of entertainment, suggested the online video giant’s power is less about audiences and more about fans. “An audience tunes in when they’re told to, a fanbase chooses when and what to watch. An audience changes the channel when their show is over. A fanbase shares, it comments, it curates, it creates,” he said.
Michael Stevens of science network Vsauce agreed: “You can build a really big audience on YouTube: they show up, they listen. But a fanbase is going to subscribe and watch everything you make in the future, and tell their friends about you.”
MCNs and YouTubers haven’t stopped boasting about their view counts, but there was more emphasis on subscribers, comments and shares, and average viewing time for videos: a focus on how engaged YouTube users are, particularly teens and twentysomethings. TV producers are following the migration of these “millennials” to online video. “Every year it gets harder to launch a successful show that attracts a younger demographic, so we have to find them elsewhere. Looking to digital content is crucial,” said Keith Hindle, X Factor co-producer FremantleMedia’s digital and branded entertainment boss.
This is fuelling new partnerships: Vice Media and Fremantle launched a food-focused online video channel called Munchies at MIPTV, for example, which eschews studio cook-offs and familiar TV chefs. “The reason young people are leaving TV is they don’t do things like this: take chances, switch things up, and give the cameras over to 24-year-old kids. TV missed the boat on this kind of content,” said Vice CEO Shane Smith.
MCN Maker Studios said at MIPTV that of its 380 million subscribers on YouTube, 80% are aged 13-34, with 40% watching on mobile devices. This demographic is creating equally youthful stars from within. “Fans, hobbyists, creators are the new publishers, and they are the new distribution,” said René Rechtman, Maker’s international president. That was clear from the series of “Digital Fronts” sessions at MIPTV, designed to highlight popular shows, channels and personalities from the online video world. They included British twins Finn and Jack Harries, who have 3.4 million subscribers to their travelogues channel, and a new series about riding rickshaws across India that attracted sponsorship from Skype and Sony.
Another Brit, gamer Joseph Garrett, has 2.3 million subscribers and 845m total views for his Stampy channel, where he posts daily videos shot within the Minecraft game for a fervent fanbase of children. Garrett is spinning off a second channel with Maker that will focus on education.
The Digital Fronts also showed there is no longer an obvious quality gap between the best drama, comedy and current affairs shows on YouTube, and shows on traditional TV. It seems likely that many more YouTube shows and stars will be making the leap to TV, with a number of shows already being packaged for sale to broadcasters. Vice already makes a news programme for HBO, for example, and wants to take more of its online output to TV. “Our strategy is to run these franchises online, but when we have a linear partner we’ll make original content that’s exclusive to the linear channel in a window,” said chief creative officer Eddy Moretti.
MCNs and online media companies were in confident mood in Cannes, to put it mildly. “I’m not going to be the next CNN, I’m not going to be the next ESPN, I’m not going to be the next MTV. I’m going to be 10 times CNN, I’m going to be 10 times ESPN and 10 times MTV, because the number of video views are now in the billions,” said Vice’s Smith.
Maker’s Rechtman added: “Networks like Maker are now becoming more important than the traditional cable players. According to Nielsen if you want to reach the millennials, you have to come to us, or other players like us.”
There was optimism, too, about the potential of YouTube and rival platforms to generate business and creative opportunities for traditional TV firms. Fremantle’s Hindle said that his company’s channels had 7bn YouTube views in 2013, generating revenues “on the scale of a major broadcast partner around the world, purely from YouTube”. With many of those views coming from clips of TV shows, it’s a relatively low-risk business, although Munchies represents a bigger bet. And it’s these kinds of risks that producers may be taking more of, as they eye competition from the digital firms.
“The production company has to risk, has to invest. The companies that will be most successful in future are the companies that will fail more now,” said Marco Bassetti, CEO of Banijay Group. He was backed up by Charlie Muirhead, CEO of online video firm Rightster. “Every time there’s a change in an industry, you can either sit on the sidelines and let it happen to you, or get properly engaged, and have a place in that disruption. This is a market going through a lot of disruption, and people need to get involved.”
Headline, Industry News
YouTube multichannel networks stake claim to the future of TV
Wednesday April 16th 2014There are new fanbases to be found on YouTube for digital producers and traditional TV firms alike. YouTube loomed larger than ever before at this year’s MIPTV programme market and conference, dominated since it was first held in Cannes in 1965 by broadcasters and producers but which now has a heavy input from multichannel networks (MCNs), digital producers and individual YouTubers.
Trends included a shift in the language and key metrics of YouTube. Alex Carloss, its global head of entertainment, suggested the online video giant’s power is less about audiences and more about fans. “An audience tunes in when they’re told to, a fanbase chooses when and what to watch. An audience changes the channel when their show is over. A fanbase shares, it comments, it curates, it creates,” he said.
Michael Stevens of science network Vsauce agreed: “You can build a really big audience on YouTube: they show up, they listen. But a fanbase is going to subscribe and watch everything you make in the future, and tell their friends about you.”
MCNs and YouTubers haven’t stopped boasting about their view counts, but there was more emphasis on subscribers, comments and shares, and average viewing time for videos: a focus on how engaged YouTube users are, particularly teens and twentysomethings. TV producers are following the migration of these “millennials” to online video. “Every year it gets harder to launch a successful show that attracts a younger demographic, so we have to find them elsewhere. Looking to digital content is crucial,” said Keith Hindle, X Factor co-producer FremantleMedia’s digital and branded entertainment boss.
This is fuelling new partnerships: Vice Media and Fremantle launched a food-focused online video channel called Munchies at MIPTV, for example, which eschews studio cook-offs and familiar TV chefs. “The reason young people are leaving TV is they don’t do things like this: take chances, switch things up, and give the cameras over to 24-year-old kids. TV missed the boat on this kind of content,” said Vice CEO Shane Smith.
MCN Maker Studios said at MIPTV that of its 380 million subscribers on YouTube, 80% are aged 13-34, with 40% watching on mobile devices. This demographic is creating equally youthful stars from within. “Fans, hobbyists, creators are the new publishers, and they are the new distribution,” said René Rechtman, Maker’s international president. That was clear from the series of “Digital Fronts” sessions at MIPTV, designed to highlight popular shows, channels and personalities from the online video world. They included British twins Finn and Jack Harries, who have 3.4 million subscribers to their travelogues channel, and a new series about riding rickshaws across India that attracted sponsorship from Skype and Sony.
Another Brit, gamer Joseph Garrett, has 2.3 million subscribers and 845m total views for his Stampy channel, where he posts daily videos shot within the Minecraft game for a fervent fanbase of children. Garrett is spinning off a second channel with Maker that will focus on education.
The Digital Fronts also showed there is no longer an obvious quality gap between the best drama, comedy and current affairs shows on YouTube, and shows on traditional TV. It seems likely that many more YouTube shows and stars will be making the leap to TV, with a number of shows already being packaged for sale to broadcasters. Vice already makes a news programme for HBO, for example, and wants to take more of its online output to TV. “Our strategy is to run these franchises online, but when we have a linear partner we’ll make original content that’s exclusive to the linear channel in a window,” said chief creative officer Eddy Moretti.
MCNs and online media companies were in confident mood in Cannes, to put it mildly. “I’m not going to be the next CNN, I’m not going to be the next ESPN, I’m not going to be the next MTV. I’m going to be 10 times CNN, I’m going to be 10 times ESPN and 10 times MTV, because the number of video views are now in the billions,” said Vice’s Smith.
Maker’s Rechtman added: “Networks like Maker are now becoming more important than the traditional cable players. According to Nielsen if you want to reach the millennials, you have to come to us, or other players like us.”
There was optimism, too, about the potential of YouTube and rival platforms to generate business and creative opportunities for traditional TV firms. Fremantle’s Hindle said that his company’s channels had 7bn YouTube views in 2013, generating revenues “on the scale of a major broadcast partner around the world, purely from YouTube”. With many of those views coming from clips of TV shows, it’s a relatively low-risk business, although Munchies represents a bigger bet. And it’s these kinds of risks that producers may be taking more of, as they eye competition from the digital firms.
“The production company has to risk, has to invest. The companies that will be most successful in future are the companies that will fail more now,” said Marco Bassetti, CEO of Banijay Group. He was backed up by Charlie Muirhead, CEO of online video firm Rightster. “Every time there’s a change in an industry, you can either sit on the sidelines and let it happen to you, or get properly engaged, and have a place in that disruption. This is a market going through a lot of disruption, and people need to get involved.”
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Headline, Industry News
YouTube multichannel networks stake claim to the future of TV
Wednesday April 16th 2014There are new fanbases to be found on YouTube for digital producers and traditional TV firms alike. YouTube loomed larger than ever before at this year’s MIPTV programme market and conference, dominated since it was first held in Cannes in 1965 by broadcasters and producers but which now has a heavy input from multichannel networks (MCNs), digital producers and individual YouTubers.
Trends included a shift in the language and key metrics of YouTube. Alex Carloss, its global head of entertainment, suggested the online video giant’s power is less about audiences and more about fans. “An audience tunes in when they’re told to, a fanbase chooses when and what to watch. An audience changes the channel when their show is over. A fanbase shares, it comments, it curates, it creates,” he said.
Michael Stevens of science network Vsauce agreed: “You can build a really big audience on YouTube: they show up, they listen. But a fanbase is going to subscribe and watch everything you make in the future, and tell their friends about you.”
MCNs and YouTubers haven’t stopped boasting about their view counts, but there was more emphasis on subscribers, comments and shares, and average viewing time for videos: a focus on how engaged YouTube users are, particularly teens and twentysomethings. TV producers are following the migration of these “millennials” to online video. “Every year it gets harder to launch a successful show that attracts a younger demographic, so we have to find them elsewhere. Looking to digital content is crucial,” said Keith Hindle, X Factor co-producer FremantleMedia’s digital and branded entertainment boss.
This is fuelling new partnerships: Vice Media and Fremantle launched a food-focused online video channel called Munchies at MIPTV, for example, which eschews studio cook-offs and familiar TV chefs. “The reason young people are leaving TV is they don’t do things like this: take chances, switch things up, and give the cameras over to 24-year-old kids. TV missed the boat on this kind of content,” said Vice CEO Shane Smith.
MCN Maker Studios said at MIPTV that of its 380 million subscribers on YouTube, 80% are aged 13-34, with 40% watching on mobile devices. This demographic is creating equally youthful stars from within. “Fans, hobbyists, creators are the new publishers, and they are the new distribution,” said René Rechtman, Maker’s international president. That was clear from the series of “Digital Fronts” sessions at MIPTV, designed to highlight popular shows, channels and personalities from the online video world. They included British twins Finn and Jack Harries, who have 3.4 million subscribers to their travelogues channel, and a new series about riding rickshaws across India that attracted sponsorship from Skype and Sony.
Another Brit, gamer Joseph Garrett, has 2.3 million subscribers and 845m total views for his Stampy channel, where he posts daily videos shot within the Minecraft game for a fervent fanbase of children. Garrett is spinning off a second channel with Maker that will focus on education.
The Digital Fronts also showed there is no longer an obvious quality gap between the best drama, comedy and current affairs shows on YouTube, and shows on traditional TV. It seems likely that many more YouTube shows and stars will be making the leap to TV, with a number of shows already being packaged for sale to broadcasters. Vice already makes a news programme for HBO, for example, and wants to take more of its online output to TV. “Our strategy is to run these franchises online, but when we have a linear partner we’ll make original content that’s exclusive to the linear channel in a window,” said chief creative officer Eddy Moretti.
MCNs and online media companies were in confident mood in Cannes, to put it mildly. “I’m not going to be the next CNN, I’m not going to be the next ESPN, I’m not going to be the next MTV. I’m going to be 10 times CNN, I’m going to be 10 times ESPN and 10 times MTV, because the number of video views are now in the billions,” said Vice’s Smith.
Maker’s Rechtman added: “Networks like Maker are now becoming more important than the traditional cable players. According to Nielsen if you want to reach the millennials, you have to come to us, or other players like us.”
There was optimism, too, about the potential of YouTube and rival platforms to generate business and creative opportunities for traditional TV firms. Fremantle’s Hindle said that his company’s channels had 7bn YouTube views in 2013, generating revenues “on the scale of a major broadcast partner around the world, purely from YouTube”. With many of those views coming from clips of TV shows, it’s a relatively low-risk business, although Munchies represents a bigger bet. And it’s these kinds of risks that producers may be taking more of, as they eye competition from the digital firms.
“The production company has to risk, has to invest. The companies that will be most successful in future are the companies that will fail more now,” said Marco Bassetti, CEO of Banijay Group. He was backed up by Charlie Muirhead, CEO of online video firm Rightster. “Every time there’s a change in an industry, you can either sit on the sidelines and let it happen to you, or get properly engaged, and have a place in that disruption. This is a market going through a lot of disruption, and people need to get involved.”
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