Google Kills YouTube Originals

Despite being the multibillion dollars company, Google has been unsuccessful many times with its own new product ideas, Google Plus, Google hangouts, Google wave, Google glass and Google video to name the few, now Google keeps its legacy and adds one more gem to the list. Google’s video portal “YouTube” has been trying for many years to position YouTube as a major player in the content sector and thus compete with the streaming giants, at least a little bit. But the success failed to materialize, and now YouTube Originals has been discontinued completely.

Exclusive content has long been the most important way to attract customers. Netflix, Disney and others have known this for a long time and have invested a lot of money in their own productions. YouTube is and remains an exception. Although the Google platform is one of the streaming pillars of the business, the focus here is primarily on content generated by users.

Accordingly, Google’s attempts to establish a premium line were not very successful. They also put money into their own content, but hardly anyone was actually willing to pay extra for it. Perhaps the best-known example was the Karate Kid spin-off Cobra Kai. The series was well received by critics and fans, but it is now on Netflix and no longer a YouTube original.

Google or rather Alphabet has long realized this, in 2019 they announced that the YouTube Originals will be freely available to all users. The background was certainly the fact that hardly anyone paid for the opening of the paywall in order to get original content.

Originals are reduced

But the shift toward advertising funding didn’t help either, and now YouTube is largely ending the experiment. Robert Kyncl, chief business officer of YouTube, announced on Twitter announced a quasi-end to in-house productions: According to Kyncl, original programs will be “reduced”; in the future, only a few contents for YouTube Kids and Black Voices will be produced in-house.

In the future, the company wants to focus on ad-financed creator content, which is essentially the same business model that it has been operating successfully for many years.