Will YouTube Make More Original Content?
By Movieguide® Contributor
Even though YouTube is a TV set mainstay nowadays, it says it won’t be making any more original content.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about YouTube and fears associated to what YouTube represents and does,” said YouTube VP of EMEA, Pedro Pina, at MIP London on Feb. 26. “The first thing to say is we are an open platform. We exist to provide the ability for context creators, from the kid in the bedroom all the way to the biggest producers, to use the platform, upload content and make it available.”
“The news inside the news is we have no interest whatsoever in producing our own content. We’ve tried it a little bit and did a few experiments,” he said.
An interviewer noted YouTube spent a lot on originals like COBRA KAI and ORIGIN.
Pina replied, “Moving on. We are known for ‘Let’s try, fail fast and move on.’”
YouTube stopped its scripted programs in 2018 but still had unscripted shows until 2023.
This news may surprise some, considering that YouTube recently made headlines for having more users on TV sets than on mobile devices.
“The ‘new’ television doesn’t look like the ‘old’ television,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said earlier this month.
Pina credits that to Android and Google TV. “[Google parent] Alphabet as a company is just very good at producing platforms,” he said. “Way back when, we started with desktop. Then we had laptops and moved into tablets and mobile became a thing. Now, it turns out users want to see us on the bigger screen in their home.”
He added that it wasn’t part of YouTube’s strategy, and TV-set upgrades during COVID-19 helped boost the change.
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“Some of our highest stats on Shorts is in the living room, and long form is, of course, also very present,” he said. “This is not us shifting our strategy, but staying with the same strategy. We get the cues from the users.”
It’s clear that user-generated content is what YouTube considers its beating heart. The company doesn’t see a reason to throw money at fresh content when its users are already making it.
“For us to be successful, we need other people to actually put the content in,” he explained. “Our commercial success will only exist with other people’s content. Our mission is to give that content to users around the world, but in order to do that, we need to have it.”
The platform became TV’s biggest distributor last year, getting the overall share of viewing through TV sets.
Its podcasts also boast over one billion views each month, and YouTube wants more. Tim Katz, YouTube’s VP for news partnerships, said the company aims to turn its successful creators into podcasters.
“Growing the pie of the overall podcasting ecosystem is something that we’re really interested in, and we think that’s a great way to do it,” Katz said this month.
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