Last year YouTube launched an ambitious project of financing original content. The goal of the project was to make YouTube more like established television. In a sense it worked, because now YouTube is cancelling many of those shows. The rumor is that only 40% of the shows that originally received funding will be renewed. The cancelled shows will not be removed from the network. YouTube hopes these shows can continue to produce content just from a new funding source.
The lesson in this for the digital marketing company is about how video is consumed. The reason these shows did not succeed is that people do not browse YouTube as they do television. Most people see their video content as an embedded video and not on the YouTube ecosystem. There is no option then to immediately see other channels. The lesson is that people need to be pointed to a video. People will not seek out more video information, and if they do it is often in a search engine and not on YouTube directly. When the company’s client has video content, then pointers need to be made to it.
Changing Channels: YouTube Will Pull the Plug on at Least 60 Percent of Its Programming Deals