[ibimage==30166==Original==https://www.youtube.com/yt/space/los-angeles.html==self==ibimage_align-left]
When Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, they acquired a home video sharing phenomena. Since then the site has grown to one billion unique users and six billion hours of videos watched each month, representing 18.7 percent of Internet usage in North America. Things really couldn’t be better.
But executives at YouTube are restless. Despite massive growth and an enviable audience, YouTube has struggled to capture the sort of high quality content that attracts the most profitable advertising. Because of the home video quality of much of its content, marketers are not willing to pay the same advertising rate for YouTube videos as they would classic television.
YouTube needed a strategy to enhance the quality of its content, and drive up its advertising rates. For that, the company decided it needed to come down from the Internet and make an investment on the ground: it founded YouTube Space LA. YouTube Space LA is a production studio that provides free equipment and sounds stages to YouTube Partners (channels with over 15,000 cumulative watch hours over the last 90 days). There are also YouTube Spaces in London, Tokyo, and soon New York City, but the Los Angeles facility is the flagship.
[ibimage==30168==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-left]
“We really have decided to make a bold move to invest in our creators,” Liam Collins, head of YouTube Space LA, said to Bloomberg TV. “The more ambitious YouTube partners are with their content YouTube will benefit, audiences will spend more time on the platform, audiences will be larger. And YouTube shares revenue with its partners, so if audiences are larger our partners benefit and so do we.”
Built out of a refurbished Howard Hughes helicopter plant, YouTube Space LA is located in Playa Vista, has over 41,000 square feet of production space including numerous sound stages, a 47-person 4k screening room, a host of post-production resources, production gear and camera equipment.
Since opening its doors in November 2012, over 20,000 people have come through YouTube Space LA and over 800 creators have produced content within the facilities, resulting in over 3000 published videos.
The Space also serves as a great place for the city’s top creators to meet serendipitously, and that was by YouTube’s design. YouTube Space LA features an open lobby, modular couches and a long dining room table put in place to inspire new interactions. It has also hosted over 300 workshops and events.
[ibimage==30165==Original==https://www.youtube.com/yt/space/events-la.html==self==ibimage_align-right]
The concept for an open access production facility came from Next New Networks a New York-based company that was helping creators develop high quality videos. Seeing the value Next New Networks brought to creators, YouTube acquired the company in 2011, brought their know-how and personnel inside, and rebranded it as YouTube Next, the internal group that runs YouTube Space.
By providing resources and know-how to creators, Collins said, YouTube wants to enhance the quality of its hosted videos in such a way that viewers watch, subscribe and keep coming back. “Our goal is to help channels build these relationships,” said Collins.
And to achieve this goal, “to the extent we can help them realize their dream we help them with technical expertise,” said Collins. “We are pretty interactive. We will make suggestions to creators.” Everyone who uses YouTube Space LA is paired with a Production Specialist who serves as a mentor and onsite contact. YouTube Partners are also given a ‘Creators Playbook,’ which highlights best practices of top channels, screenwriters, directors and editors.
However, “we are careful not to define quality,” said Collins. “People succeed with content of varying production quality.” And because YouTube doesn’t own the content and doesn’t aspire to, “the creative is up to them.”
As Google is known to do, everything within YouTube Space is measured and reviewed for effectiveness. Collins said the company “tracks what kind of equipment and how much time in the space” individuals are using. And though they haven’t used the metrics yet, in the future YouTube will be reviewing which production resources bring the greatest return on investment. “2014 is the year we will put those metrics to work,” said Collins.
Ultimately, YouTube Space envisions itself as the ideal platform to serve and catalyze niche content. Company representatives often describe YouTube as part of a long progression of content changes: the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s were an era of network television, broadly appealing content and broad audiences, and the 80’s and 90’s were an era of cable channels, more focused on content with medium-sized audiences. This decade will, by the power of the Internet, divide content and audiences into niches.
So while Netflix put up $100 million for ‘House of Cards,’ YouTube is indirectly investing in an array content it does not own or control. “We’ve learned from our experience at YouTube, is that it’s very difficult for any of us to predict what’s successful,” said YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar at the 2012 D: Dive into Media Conference. “We are trying to place our bets far and wide.”
[ibimage==30174==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]
[ibimage==30173==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]
[ibimage==30172==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]
[ibimage==30171==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]
[ibimage==30170==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]
[ibimage==30169==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]
