YouTube, the video site that is constantly in the news, has been making some changes lately. The video giant seems to waver between promoting their funny, borderline-stupid videos and hiding them in the site. The site wants to be more professional, but at the same time, it seems as though they can’t stay away from Jackass-like channels.
A year ago, YouTube began their site overhaul with premium channels tailored towards lifestyle, comedy and other life niches. TV programs caught on to the trend and now have their piece of the pie. YouTube heavily invested in a number of scheduled web video sites in the past year, but then decided to now cut back and refocus — only around 30-40% of funded makers will be funded again, and more new channels are being brought on. They have found that learning lifestyle videos, comedy videos, and hard promotion have worked better than the celebrity channels. So, on they go to round two.
The newest development and biggest step in round two was acquiring an exclusive Food Network channel. Although the Food Network already has an established YouTube channel (with only around 43,000 subscribers), this channel will create exclusive content for the online world. What does that mean essentially? Well, instead of running repeat episodes and clips from their television programming, they will now produce original content specifically for the YouTube channel. The content would be produced with a significantly lower budget than their TV shows, and there is no word yet on whether the current Food Network TV personalities will also be hosting the online shows. Although it is going to be difficult for the Food Network to bring something fresh and original to the table, they are planning on offering complementary content to its channel, like recipes for dishes on the shows and recipes by their chef personalities.
