What Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have been doing with streaming series was just too enticing for YouTube not to join the trend.
Per Business Insider, YouTube is jumping into the scripted series game, developing a slate of new shows starring the likes of Ellen DeGeneres, Katy Perry, and Kevin Hart.
Interestingly, the shows will “air” on YouTube’s free, ad-supported platform, not it’s paid subscription service YouTube Red.
The video platform is clearly kowtowing to toward the trend of cord-cutting and moving away from traditional cable packages.
YouTube’s business chief Robert Kyncl would seem to agree:
“Five years ago, 85 percent of all original series were ad-supported….This year, that number has fallen to just over two-thirds,” he said. “And with significantly more content coming to subscription services, that shift is accelerating. So we see these shows as a way for us to partner with [advertisers] to buck this trend.”
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