YouTube Making Nice with Legacy TV

The Google-owned video platform, the world’s largest television distributor and, as of this year, the globe’s biggest media company, wants the industry to love it, not fear it.

At a Mipcom session in Cannes on Monday, YouTube VP Pedro Pina took the pitch to the TV trade’s home turf, joined by Stephan Schmitter, CEO of leading German commercial broadcaster RTL Deutschland. Their message was YouTube wants to work with, not replace, traditional TV.

The session was part of an ongoing charm offensive from YouTube, picking up from Pina’s MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival earlier this year, in which he pushed back on the idea that YouTube is behind the demise of legacy media. He repeated the case in Cannes, stressing that YouTube is a distributor, not a competing producer. “We as a platform are not invested in producing content,” Pina said, adding that the company believes “there are incredible companies around the world that really understand what beautiful content looks like.”

Schmitter, noting that RTL had “no relationship or partnership with YouTube,” just three years ago, argued for the mutual benefits of legacy media companies working with the platform. The German broadcaster has begun to put its shows onto YouTube — to reach new audiences and to funnel them back to its traditional TV and streaming offerings.

The network found tremendous success dropping some 200 old episodes of Cobra 11, it’s long-running German action series, on YouTube, said Schmitter, generating ad share-revenue on content that “had no more value in our ecosystem” and driving a younger, more male demographic to its subscription service, RTL+, which carries newer Cobra 11 episodes. The company saw “123 percent more first video views on [RTL+]” and “around 26 percent more subscriptions” tied to the content, he said.

Pina argued YouTube’s revenue-share model was proof the platform’s interests aligned with that of its traditional TV partners. “We cannot be successful if our partners are not successful,” he said, noting YouTube shares “more than half of its ad revenue” with partners. If content doesn’t monetize, he noted, “we make nothing out of it.”

He also pitched YouTube as a risk-free sandbox for legacy TV.

“You can experiment until the cows go home. And if it doesn’t work, shut it down, start again,” Pina said. “If you do something on YouTube that is not successful, it’s because no one was watching.”

Among RTL’s YouTube experiments, said Schmitter, was a plan to “air maybe five to 10 minutes of a soccer game just exclusively on YouTube,” with viewers having to switch over to RTL+ to watch the rest of the match.

The German broadcaster is also putting more of its news content onto YouTube, following the lead of traditional networks like the BBC. Both Schmitter and Pina argued having more “authoritative voices” in news on the platform could foster democratic debate.

“YouTube is a huge platform where all voices can be represented, all arguments presented and what’s important is to make sure all voices are there,” said Pina. “The more traditional players start being on YouTube, the more a cross section of voices can be heard and that can only be good for democracy.”