YouTube Originals, an ambitious project that accompanied the creation of YouTube Premium, joins the cemetery of initiatives launched by Google before being stopped a few years later.
Six years and then goes. In 2016, eyeing the flourishing Netflix and Prime Video, YouTube had dreamed of a similar streaming platform, with its own original content. Included in the Premium subscription, YouTube Originals was to offer a host of audacious programs, and the Google service had even pulled out all the stops to attract some big names.
However, as often in Mountain View, the love stories are short, compact, passionate and the project quickly fell into disrepair. Some premium content ended up on the free part of the site, in exchange for a few banal advertisements. Ambitious programs like Cobra-Kai Where Becoming a God have been recovered by other platforms or channels, Netflix and Showtime in this case. Yesterday, it was the turn of YouTube Originals to join Chat, Loon, YouTube Gaming or even Google+ in the cemetery of projects launched with panache by Google and then abandoned.
The boss of the programs takes the door
Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s business boss, announced the news via a statement posted on Twitter. As often in this kind of document, we congratulate ourselves on the success of the project, we praise the “incredible creators” brought to light on occasion… before dropping the ax. Exit So Susanne Daniels, present at the birth of YouTube Originals and who was still in charge of its programming today, thanked for her vision, her inventiveness and her leadership, but thanked all the same.
An update on YouTube Originals: pic.twitter.com/PixhgZ2yhU
—Robert Kyncl (@rkyncl) January 18, 2022
Some projects from Originals will nevertheless remain, in particular those intended for children and programs devoted to the African-American community. Robert Kyncl has also pledged to continue signed contracts with creators for ongoing series. This is nonetheless an additional failure for the Mountain View firm.