YouTube CEO Susan Wojkicki and content boss Susanne Daniels have been talking about the company’s plans to continue investing in original shows and events.
Their interview with The Hollywood Reporter includes some bullish quotes on the prospects of competing with the likes of Netflix and Hulu.
“I want our shows to resonate in a big way with audiences,” said Daniels. “And once that happens, we’ll be on that list — like it or not.”
Of course, YouTube is the biggest online-video service already in terms of reach, with 1.5 billion monthly viewers. Also, that’s not just ‘short-firm’ videos: in fact, YouTube’s algorithm has been pushing creators of all kinds, from vloggers and beauty experts to gamers, towards making videos longer than 15-20 minutes for some time now.
But the focus here is about more professional-quality shows and films, both within the YouTube Red subscription tier, and supported by ads on YouTube’s free tier.
“Television is changing a lot, and there are opportunities to reinvent parts of it,” said Wojcicki. “We’re going to continue to invest more in it.”
The full piece is worth reading for the wider context of YouTube’s evolution outside music.
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