Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt certainly doesn’t lack confidence. Last night, Schmidt made the assertion to a large room full of advertisers that internet video doesn’t need to concern itself with supplanting standard television watching because he says, “That’s already happened.”
Having recently surpassed the one billionth unique visitor landmark, YouTube has a reason to be a bit cocky. There are over 72 hours of video uploaded every minute, YouTube is the second most-used search engine, and it has over four billion hours of video viewed each month. These staggering statistics continue to grow as more users come to the internet video site and more videos are uploaded.
Schmidt made his swaggering and compelling presentation at something called NewFront, which is the digital media take on the Upfront held every year for TV networks to showcase programming and sell ads. While YouTube may have been copying the wheel that television has made, its current push isn’t to be seen as simply a substitute for TV.
“It’s not a replacement for something that we know,” said Schmidt. “It’s a new thing that we have to think about, to program, to curate and build new platforms.”
Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s global head of content, went on to say, “I thought that YouTube was like TV, but it isn’t. I was wrong. TV is one-way. YouTube talks back.”
We’ll let Chris Hardwick’s take on web video comments during an appearance on Conan act as a response here to Kyncl.
Jokes about the quality of YouTube commenters aside, YouTube continues to become more of a powerhouse as it grows. The service has moved beyond being a home for internet celebrities like Felicia Day, Tobuscus, Ze Frank, and more who regularly receive millions of viewers. More and more lately, the internet video service is becoming a launching ground for new TV shows, movies, and even whole networks. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s new show, HitRECord On TV, debuts this August. And even though YouTube didn’t premiere any upcoming shows or networks at the NewFronts, the company did tout the purchase of AwesomenessTV, a YouTube teen network, for about $33 million in cash by DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.
AwesomenessTV has programming like any kind of traditional TV network, with talk shows, scripted and reality programs, and sketch comedy. A Nickelodeon show is supposedly on the way, and the company released a movie with AMC Theaters called Mindless Behavior: All Around the World.
Numbers attached to the AwesomenessTV network can be a bit dumbfounding.
- Its has more than 57,000 YouTube channels.
- Those channels have 14.4 million subscribers.
- There are more than 1 million videos on the network.
- Videos on the network have have been seen a combined 809 million times.
DreamWorks CEO Jeffery Katzenberg might have said it best when he appeared with Awesomeness founder and CEO Brian Robbins at the NewFront.
“This is a whole new form of content, content delivery and content consumption,” said Katzenberg. “It’s the medium of the future and the future has already arrived.”
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