YouTube Looks to Blip.tv for New "Show Creators"

NEW YORK, NY -- Blip.tv, the fast-growing video sharing site which leads the industry in hosting and distributing episodic Web video programs, now allows its show producers to upload directly to YouTube, the company announced earlier today.

At the Blip.tv event, I spoke with George Strompolos who heads manages content partner alliances for YouTube about new agreement.  

Over at Blip, some 150 shows, including Beet.TV, have been authorized to upload to YouTube, Blip CEO Mike Hudack told me by email. 

With the new arrangement, revenue from ads sold by Blip and surfaced on YouTube will split between the producer, Blip, and YouTube.  Mike declined to provide the breakdown, but expects a "bigger pie" from the added views obtained through YouTube.

Andy Plesser, Managing Editor

Disclosure:  Blip.tv is the primary video sharing and distribution platform for Beet.TV and provides  non-exclusive advertising sales. 

Video Transcript

George Strompolos:  So, um, there's so much content being uploaded to YouTube at all times. You know, about every 60 seconds there's 20 hours of new video being uploaded to YouTube and that can come from all types of sources, and Blip really specializes in individual show creators, and so what we've done in partnering with them is enable these show creators to use an interface and a dashboard that works for them and plug their videos into YouTube, which is a place where they're often going to get a lot of views and also help the monetization of those videos. So it was a natural fit for us. 

So most of these show creators have their own channels on YouTube. Many of them are partners and monetize videos on the site and this is really just a different input point for their videos, so whereas many of them would upload directly from YouTube, in this case, some of the Blip show creators would upload from their Blip dashboard. 

So it's been a growing area for us. Many of our content partners, as they grow their distribution footprint on YouTube, they've turned to us and asked for the ability to sell their own advertisements. Most of the sales efforts that we do against partner content are done at scale and a lot of times partners want to drill in and do their own campaigns, and so we've been growing that option with many of our media partners, large and small, and it's been something that the partners love. In this case, we have a distribution partner in Blip who is also drilling down on the show level and selling some of the individual shows that YouTube may or may not have the ability to sell on a one-off basis, but Blip does have that ability and they do drill down on that level, and so we're experimenting with the option for them to plug in and do the same thing that many of our content partners do.

Andy Plesser:  And George, just sort of a high level view of sort of the independent entertainment video that you see surfacing up, episodic video that's surfacing up on YouTube, what's happening, what's exciting, and what are you guys doing, kind of...I know that...in terms of curating or finding in terms of interesting content?

George Stompolos:  Sure, so there's a lot happening. I think a lot of content producers are realizing the economics of producing for the web and gone are the days of the $50,000 per minute webisodes, um, and a lot of the original content producers that are, sort of, "of the internet," it's interesting, a lot of them are going back to the simplicity of single camera shoots and videoblogging. They're really just amassing audiences and, um, from a content perspective some of the trends we're seeing are, you know, single camera shots, individuals, very character driven storylines, and you know, if you kinda go to YouTube and look at the most viewed or the most subscribed list, you know, you're going to see a lot of content creators like that who are running their own show, kind of like you, Andy. And so that's been a fantastic trend. We've also really enjoyed a lot of the constant one-off videos that come to YouTube and then become memes of their own and then you see remixes of those and everything. That's really been a lot of fun, that's one of the things we're known for, and on the professional media side, a lot of the established media companies are starting to realize the audience they can gain from YouTube and the value of that community and so, you know, all ships are rising and it's been a fantastic last year.