Popular YouTube Programmer to More Closely Resemble Cable

YouTube’s most popular programmer, Maker Studios, is restructuring its network of genre-ranging channels in an effort to better reach consumers and advertisers. Its more than 55,000 channels will be organized into four units: men, women, family, and entertainment programming. At the Variety Entertainment & Tech Summit on Monday, Maker Studios chairman Ynon Kreiz also unveiled Maker Max, which allows content creators to more easily manage their videos.

With more than 330 million subscribers and 4.1 billion views each month, Maker is the largest network to restructure in such a way to more closely resemble cable structure. Variety says Kreiz “explained the reorg as a means of mimicking the evolution of major multichannel brands like MTV and ESPN.”

But Kreiz noted key differences between Maker’s platform and traditional cable, saying he stays away from comparing the two. “What we do is part of a new medium,” he said. “The same way that television is different from theatrical films and video games is different from video.”

In January, seven of the company’s current verticals will expand to 20 or more to include more than a hundred short-form programs currently in the pipeline, according to Variety. Though the new verticals have not yet been revealed, they will include the existing Animonster, FriendlyPaw, Maker Music, Polaris, The Mom’s View, Cartoonium, and the Platform. With 80 percent of its viewers in the 13-34 demographic, the programming is likely to be geared mostly toward that age range.

“Those who have figured out how to program to niches organize themselves in a way that aggregates audience around key demographics and interest groups,” Kreiz said. By doing so, the company is setting itself up for easier consumption and marketer buy-in.

Some of Maker Studios’ most popular talents include PewDiePie, KassemG, and the Shaytards.

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