Most of the new content, Kyncl said, would begin “rolling out” in the first half of 2012. “I think it’s fair to say we spread our bets wide, and we can watch how things develop and decide which areas we want to go deep in.”
A number of people I had spoken to about the channel initiative were having trouble defining what exactly it is. Is Kyncl building a Web-based Comcast or Time Warner? Some believe that to be the case, but Jim Louderback, the C.E.O. of Revision3, an Internet video network, told me, “I don’t think he’s building a cable-TV competitor. I think he’s building the flip side of the cable business—a bundle of premium content that viewers just can’t live without. I see them more focussed on creating and nurturing new original properties similar to HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central.” Is YouTube attempting to seize the means of production from Hollywood? James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research, thinks so. “They’re saying, Fine, you don’t want to sell us your content, you want to tie everything up in distribution deals—fine, we’re going to make our own deals. Not just U.S. deals but global-rights deals, because YouTube is the largest video platform on the globe, and we’re going to sign Madonna and Amy Poehler, and guess what, this train is leaving the station, get on it or not.”
Will Robert Kyncl and YouTube Revolutionize Television? : The New Yorker
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