What’s new in YouTube channels?
Pay-to-view could launch this summer
YouTube could start selling paid-for subscriptions to its most popular channels by the middle of 2013.
Subscriptions would cost from 63p/month to £3/month for each of the dedicated channels, with the most popular channels like smosh, RayWilliamJohnson, and Machinima likely candidates.
Marketing industry site Adage said YouTube may also charge for pay-per-view live events, content libraries and self-help or financial advice shows.
Google said: “We have long maintained that different content requires different types of payment models. The important thing is that, regardless of the model, our creators succeed on the platform. There are a lot of our content creators that think they would benefit from subscriptions, so we’re looking at that.”
The YouTube pay-TV experiment is likely to start with around 25 channels, which would get about 50 per cent of the subscription revenue, but would risk the inevitable loss of subscribers that comes with going behind a paywall.
Video gaming satirists smosh have 7,195,921 subscribers and internet commenter and comedian Ray William Johnson has 7,066,378 followers, but they’re far from unique in the world of YouTube.
Machinima (5,984,389 subs) and traditional broadcasters like BBC Worldwide have distinctive content that might win over subscribers like traditional TV channels.
January 30, 2013
News stories for YouTube channels
What are YouTube channels?
In October 2012, YouTube announced that a number of new channels would soon be available to UK viewers.
We only had a vague idea of what was in store before; now we’ve got a better idea.
In the UK, 21 channels have launched covering a range of topics from fashion to sport to healthy living and beauty tips.
Fashtag, sadly not a channel hosted by ex-Gladiators presenter John Fashanu, is instead a Carnaby Street-based channel that’s affiliated with fashion magazine Grazia. It promises ‘fashion need-to-knows and must-have entertainment’ and ‘pop-culture freshly squeezed from our fashion lens.’
Possibly riffing on the UK’s international reputation for poor dentistry, Bad Teeth will offer “sketches, animations and celebrity guest-hosted pranks for a thoroughly entertaining experience,” while Netmums, from Au Feminin Group and Netmums, promises ‘a candid place to share stories, laugh and gain invaluable tips on surviving parenthood.’
More familiar names include BBC Worldwide, which will be launching OnEarth featuring ’50 years worth of astounding, entertaining, thought-provoking and educational natural history content,’ and Jamie Oliver, who will be showing off new recipes and culinary secrets from his channel.
You can check out the list of upcoming channels here. Let us know what you think in the comments and what you’d like to see arriving on YouTube.
News stories for YouTube channels
Guinness World Records launching GWRomg
GWRomg might sound like a tie up between Great Western Railways and hipster band LMFAO but it’s actually the name of the new Guinness World Records YouTube channel – Guinness World Records: OMG!
Launching in November, Guinness World Records: OMG! promises to do what you’d expect it to – bring us footage of people setting, breaking, or attempting to break new world records.
Guinness World Records has posted this teaser clip on YouTube (where else?) to give us a taste of things to come.
Segments on the YouTube channel will include slow motion replays of things like cars being flipped over by sumo wrestlers and humourous voiceovers of old footage, in a Mock the Week/Bad Lip Reading-style.
The most interesting-sounding segment on GWRomg is one called Do Try This At Home. The idea is that a world record is set and then viewers at home are challenged to break it and upload their efforts to YouTube. The best (and worst) efforts will then be shown off in future episodes.
This is a clever way of interacting with audiences and is the great example of how YouTube as a medium can differ greatly from traditional broadcasting.
Head over to the GWRomg channel now to subscribe if you’ve got a webcam, fancy yourself as record breaking material and don’t mind making a berk out of yourself online.
October 11, 2012
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