Monday, July 18, 2011

YouTube offers Web series for $3.5mil ...

Read it at AdAgeDigital:

YouTube's New Sell: Want to Buy a Web Series for $3.5 Million?

Pursuing TV Dollars With Big-Money Projects From Howcast, Endemol, Ben Silverman's Electus and Others

YouTube has pitched advertisers on funding big-budget web shows featuring stars like Kobe Bryant, Lady Gaga and "Dancing with the Stars" host Brooke Burke, asking millions of dollars to make them happen.

The pitches are part of YouTube's foray into Hollywood for polished, TV-style web video that can attract the kind of advertisers that devote most of their ad budgets on TV. The concepts were pitched as branded entertainment, shows created for or in conjunction with advertisers. YouTube is separately trying to seed the market for professional web video by funding as much as $5 million in startup costs for producers to create YouTube content channels around advertiser-friendly categories like food, fashion, sports and comedy.

The celebrity shows that YouTube recently proposed to advertisers -- so-called YouTube Originals -- would make the video site, best known for user-generated content and music videos, look more like a traditional TV network than ever before, according to pitch documents obtained by Advertising Age.