“Google Inc. on Friday announced the creation of around 100 online video “channels’ on its YouTube website that will have new original programming involving celebrities such as such as singer Madonna, rapper Jay-Z, actor Ashton Kutcher and former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal,” Amir Efrati and Lauren A.E. Schuker report for The Wall Street Journal. “The venture, in partnership with dozens of media companies, Hollywood production companies, and online-video creators, will generate about 25 hours of new, original programming a day on YouTube. The majority of the roughly 100 channels will launch next year.”
“Also involved in the venture are wellness guru Deepak Chopra, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, Rainn Wilson of ‘The Office,’ who will be featured in a comedy channel, and a Hispanic channel featuring Sofia Vergara of ‘Modern Family,'” Efrati and Schuker report. “The celebrities will partner with various production companies to produce the content.”
“Google is hoping to turn YouTube into a next-generation video provider that oversees free online channels with professional-grade shows. YouTube is expected to give some content creators 55% of the resulting ad revenue after YouTube recoups the cash advances it paid them, some of the people said. In Hollywood, such a split is considered to be generous,” Efrati and Schuker report. “YouTube is paying more than $100 million in advances to content partners, people familiar with the matter have said.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Yet another reason to pick up a $99 Apple TV
if you don’t have one (or more), yet.
People don’t want more crap channels. They want less complexity in their tv and something decent to watch. 100 channels that people don’t watch doesn’t help. Just another spec that google wants to throw out there.
100 channels of Sh!t to choose from!
…I got electric lights, and I’ve got second sight, but I’ve got nowhere to fly to…fly to…fly to…
Hahaha Love the Pink Floyd reference! 😉
IQuack
You know what they say, throw enough of it on a wall and some of it will stick.
That is what Google is doing.
I can get 1000 channels now on the Internet …. Not one worth watching … Until an Internet based provider gets the content available through cable or satellite it will not work for me.. I live in Mexico and use a Slingbox just to get US cable programming…. Nothing else can compete
This is Google attempting to pre-empt Apple. If it is not clear yet, here’s a rather obvious direction.
1. Apple has built a $100 million plus data center and is going to build another one next door. These enormous server farms are NOT for people to pay $24.99 a year to store backups of their photos. That’s not much of a business model.
2. Google knows what the roadmap looks like, has the YouTube brand but believes that the path to convergence is directly through the web. That’s not likely.
3. They have spent $100 million which sounds like a lot but is actually about the cost of producing two high budget feature films these days to acquire past their prime B-List celebrities like Madonna, Shaquille O’Neal, and others to produce content that will be essentially competing in virtually the same space as skateboarding dogs.
4. Apple is just getting started but as they always do, they move toward refinement, toward quality, toward better, easier, more elegant. So, the data center(s) will be fully functional when they launch the next phase.
5. Netflix already paid for some content production but then shot themselves in the foot by moving too early, thinking that their streaming product was ready for individual branding. They wanted to be first in the space. Stupid. First means nothing if it isn’t GOOD and doesn’t meet the broader consumer market needs
6. Apple sits on more than $75 billion in cash. Instead of Madonna think better and more current performers. Think movie and television style production quality all coming through Apple TV…the ONLY place to get it. They will start
with some exclusive, long term quality content possibly producing some kind of epic sci-fi film where it is available
only on Apple TV for the first 90 days before going to wider release. Two paths to the content will exist…One through the Apple TV set top box and the other through a new Apple branded voice controlled system capable of glasses free 3-D and full Siri integration. Then more high quality content will be financed much like TV and Motion Picture studios do now…but they don’t have Apple’s money. Familiar with what Sony did years ago? When they bought a movie studio and created http://www.sonypictures.com/
Apple is going to control the whole ball of wax from production to delivery. Just watch.
Anything involving Ashton Kutcher will be a snoozefest.
Regarding “getting an Apple TV” (I don’t have one), I assume that the h264 versions of YouTube videos displayed on Apple TV don’t have Google’s ads embedded in them, right? Is Apple paying Google a fee for every video watched? I imagine that would have to be the case, or what would the incentive for Google be to serve up those videos for free?
Fry in the year 3000 from the show Futurama: “Three million channels and nothing good on.”
If “3-Input Girls” is one of them, I’m watching.
We obviously don’t want more “produced” video crap — that’s why we all turned from TV to YouTube and the site exploded. They just don’t get it.
I hope they ad lots of commercials and pop-ups also – we REALLY love those…