Is YouTube simply on a public relations push? Or, is there a market shift away from Hollywood and towards the Creator Economy emerging?

Key Takeaways

• YouTube has been rolling out a Public Relations blitz about the Creator Economy lately
• Is YouTube simply on a public relations push or is there something more going on?
• Meaning, is the business logic of a market shift away from Hollywood and towards the Creator Economy emerging?
• Hollywood talent is moving away from big budget production models to low budget models driven by authenticity, and
• Larger YouTube creator channels are evolving away from low budget production to reality TV-type production budgets.

About four years ago I was supposed to interview YouTube’s Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl at DLD about his then-new book, Streampunks: YouTube and the Rebels Remaking Media.

He ended up having to cancel due to illness, and I ended up improvising this talk.

I liked his book, and it came to mind when YouTube rolled out a new podcast series last month, “The Upload: The Rise of the Creator Economy”.

In fact, YouTube has been rolling out a Public Relations blitz about the Creator Economy lately:

• In late August, YouTube announced that it has over 2MM creators in its YouTube Partner Program, and has paid more than $30B to creators, artists, and media companies over the past three years, alone.
• It also began featuring playlists of Creators on the Rise, an outgrowth of a program launched in 2017. Its second one was posted on September 30.
• Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw reported YouTube is looking to hire an executive to oversee its podcasting business in part because popular YouTubers, like Logan Paul and h3h3, have branched out into podcasts. (October 5)

• YouTube announced on its blog on October 6:

• Oxford Economics’ research found that YouTube’s creative ecosystem supported 394,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the US, an increase of 14 percent over 2019. In fact, the total contribution of YouTube’s creative ecosystem to the US GDP was $20.5 billion in 2020, a 23 percent increase over 2019.

• YouTube told Tubefilter it was it is doing away with its annual review YouTube Rewind, and “it is not abandoning the project because of the widespread criticism it has received on more recent efforts, but because its platform has become so massive that it is impossible to encapsulate its vastness and diversity within a minutes-long compilation. (Tubefilter, October 7, 2021)
• The Wall Street Journal’s Tripp Mickle reported on How YouTube Makes Sure Its Hitmakers Don’t Stumble (Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2021)

YouTube has historically been a black box. It is increasingly becoming less of one as the Creator Economy emerges as a business model paradigm for YouTube, Hollywood stars like Reese Witherspoon and Will Smith, and for platforms like Spotify.

This all points to an interesting question: is YouTube simply on a public relations push or is there something more going on?

Meaning, is the business logic of a market shift away from Hollywood and towards the Creator Economy emerging? What is it that YouTube is seeing and we are not?