I am so amazed it has taken this long for something like this to occur. I figured back in 2004 that podcasting would break open the media industry and provide a lot more alternatives to traditional, but media, programming. As they say, though, it can take a long time to turn a battleship. It is good to see some movement in this area, though.
It is important to remember that we do have alternatives to the typical programming provided by television, radio and movie producers. Where technological and monetary constraints kept the average person out of the media market, this simply isn’t the case today. Anyone can produce a show and, given enough experience and talent, can produce a show that is better, and has higher viewership than even the best cable-aired shows.
I have been advising people to use podcasting, YouTube and others to get their message out for the last 7 years and will continue to do so. We all have a unique message to offer the world and there will always be an audience, both large and small, that will find us, if we put our message out there.
YouTube’s got big plans for web TV: specialized channels with niche and original content
YouTube’s come quite a long way from its roots as a repository for random videos from the public. It’s gone from “Chocolate Rain” and the Tron guy to streaming Disney classics and now creating original, quality content.The New Yorker spoke extensively with YouTube’s Global Head of Content Robert Kyncl about the site’s future plans, and YouTube’s got its sights set on grabbing a big slice of TV’s $300 billion pie. Kyncl thinks the future of TV is in niche content, and YouTube’s original channels are just the vehicle to deliver it direct to your digital door. The site is commissioning people and companies to create the channels (as opposed to individual shows or pieces of content) which gives the creators freedom to program their channels as they see fit — all YouTube asks is that they provide a certain number of hours of programming per week. This production model is apparently pretty attractive to content producers, given the talent that’s on board and the amount of content that’ll be rolling out over the next six months.