Is the platform positioning itself to challenge Hollywood’s movie studios next?
The infrastructure suggests it’s already happening. YouTube’s CEO has noted that “TV has surpassed mobile” as the main device for YouTube viewing in the U.S., with viewers watching over 1 billion hours every day on their TVs.
YouTube creators are now building actual studios, with facilities like Alan Chikin Chow’s 10,000-square-foot office in Burbank and new production facilities from creators like Kinigra Deon in Alabama.
MarkiplierCredit: YouTube
The leap from YouTube creator to filmmaker via traditional means is very possible.
Two major YouTubers have feature films ready this year—Markiplier’s Iron Lung, based on a horror video game, and Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks, a supernatural horror. Stuckmann, a film critic with over 2 million subscribers, raised nearly $1.4 million through Kickstarter and landed distribution with NEON, the same company behind Longlegs.
These creators may understand their audiences in some ways studios don’t, and the big players are struggling to reach some of them, especially young viewers, as a result.
Traditional studios are inadvertently validating YouTube as a distribution platform. Recently, Warner Bros. tried treating YouTube as a dumping ground for older films, releasing full movies on its channels. WB’s titles are now private, but there are other studio-affiliated channels like Love Love with plenty still up.
If established studios see YouTube as a viable distribution platform for their archives, it’s not an unbelievably massive leap to imagine YouTube creators producing content that could compete with studio releases.
Of course, challenges remain. Production values, distribution networks, and marketing budgets still favor traditional studios.
Additionally, there is the issue of YouTube being free. No matter how many fans you have, there will almost always be some resistance if you suddenly ask your audience to pay for something they weren’t paying for before. There have been plenty of creators who didn’t convert their audiences in ways they expected when they tried it—take Watcher Entertainment and its streamer debacle from last year.
But YouTube’s creators have something studios desperately want, and that’s direct audience relationships.
With creators building their own studios, developing original content, and commanding audiences larger than many TV networks, YouTube might transform into a whole new beast.
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