According to a story in the New York Post some of those Youtube-sponsored video content channels that were funded with $100 million in January 2012 may be cut from the team before even finishing out the year.
“They’ll cull the herd and work with the best,” said one source who suggests YouTube execs will be deep in discussions on its original-content initiative 2.0 plan over the next few weeks — and that the ax will fall on the less popular channels before Dec. 31, The Post has learned.
Depending on what Youtube designates “less popular” it could mean some business model changes for Redbull Media House, Network A, The Ride Channel, and Alli Sports.
Let’s see how the channels have done since our last Youtube Action Channel Tote Board action channels on March 15, 2012 (remembering of course, that Transworld.TV is not a Youtube partner site).
Subs Mar Views Mar Subs Aug Views Aug Subs Inc Views Inc
Redbull 386,626 259,389,937 513,402 317,789,299 126,776 58,399,362
Alli Sports 28,240 10,134,195 47,629 16,325,205 19,389 6,191,010
Transworld TV 10,526 5,470,641 17,617 7,613,161 7,091 2,142,520
Ride Channel 32,329 4,164,433 92,663 17,309,062 60,334 13,144,629
Network A 28,320 1,951,528 64,732 7,210,656 36,412 5,259,138
Based on these numbers (taken from the header of each channel) the channels have the following average views per month and would generate the monthly revenues at the “oft quoted quality content” CPM of $20:
Monthly Views Monthly Revenue Redbull Media House 11,679,872 $233,597 Ride Channel 2,628,925 $52,578 Alli Sports 1,238,202 $24,764 Network A 1,051,828 $21,036 Transworld TV 428,504 $8,570
We don’t know what Youtube’s expectations were, but we’d guess that Redbull Media House may be in the proper revenue generation range. When you compare the revenue being generated to the $1 million Youtube fronted each channel the gaps between the become even more apparent. Redbull would earn its investment back in a little over 4 months. At the Ride Channel it would take a year-and-a-half, while at Alli Sports and Network A it will take well over three years. Depending on how Youtube is thinking that could be a long, long time.
For a clearer view on how all these channels stack up check out Ad Age’s Top Original Channels of All Time.
[Link: New York Post and Ad Age]
Thanks for doing all of that math, but it says right in the article that…
“The weeding out of the less-popular videos comes amid a new emphasis at YouTube on the time viewers spend on the channel — and not just how many views each channel gets.”
Sounds to me like youtube wants more quality “TV style” content and less viral videos.
Though I do appreciate that TransWorld, was included in this list for comparison, it only shows one of the multiple TransWorld channels that we push our content to. For a fair comparison, i would think the study should be totaling the views across the whole TransWorld/YouTube network of channels :transworld, ridebmxmagazine, transworldsurf, twmxcom, transworldskatemag, transworldcinema, twsnowfilms.
I would like to note that TransWorld considers the YouTube content to be ‘discoverable content’. I could see this changing in the future, but unlike the other content creators on the list, we do not actively promote it as one of your social media channels.
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