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Youtube launching niche German channels

Published: 8 Oct 12 10:22 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/money/20121008-45417.html

Internet video platform Youtube is launching a range of new specialist online channels specifically for Germany, it announced Monday. But the Google-run company insisted that it was not trying to compete with television.

“Our strategy is to see what interests there are out there that are not catered for on (German) television,” said Youtube manager Robert Kyncl. The concept behind the 12 new channels would be to “fill the blind spots,” he added.

The “Original Channels” concept launched last year in the US, and the German channels should serve up a range of health, comedy, sport, cars and chat shows and should be online by the end of 2012.

A couple of confirmed examples are “Heartbeat Berlin,” which will cover fashion and lifestyle in the German capital and is being made by large private broadcaster RTL. Comedy sketch show “Ponk” will show life in a student house and “Happy & Fit” will cover health and well-being.

Similar models are also being planned for France and the UK. Google, which owns Youtube, said it would capitalise on them with audience-targeted adverts, shown before a programme.

Kyncl stressed that the company was not trying to compete with traditional television broadcasters. He added he felt positive about that the advert clips concept, which he hoped companies would pay more for when they see how successful it is.

DPA/The Local/jcw

What do you think? Leave your comment below.


Your comments about this article:

11:16 October 8, 2012 by The-ex-pat
I bet Gema are foaming at the mouth at the prospect of blocking this too................
11:54 October 8, 2012 by Berlin fuer alles
Not trying to compete with German TV. They don't need to. German TV is rubbish anyway and it won't take much to be better than it. The most likely scenario is the German government will find some way of blocking this competition rather than leaving it up to German TV to improve and compete. As ex.pat says, GEMA will surely step in and put a spanner in the works.

Ze Germanz haz their vays of making zis fail.
13:24 October 8, 2012 by pepsionice
Here's the thing, viewers of state-run TV are dying off. No one in the age group of 15 to 24 watches network TV. So the odds of them being able to continue the state-run TV monopoly in two decades, is zero. I think they know it. But how do you dump all of these expensive TV executives who do almost nothing?
13:42 October 8, 2012 by Berlin fuer alles
@pepsionice. Answer is simple. You don't dump them. Instead you apply a blanket TV tax and keep these dinosaurs in a job. The better option of course would be to make state TV more efficient and cost effective without hitting the tax payer. But that way is never considered an option in Germany. Better keep the old dinosaurs like GEMA, State TV etc going regardless.
09:16 October 9, 2012 by wood artist
GEMA will kill it, claiming that somebody else owns the rights to "channels" and "television." At some point, they'll claim to have found someone who owns the rights to the internet, although they won't disclose who that is, nor how they came to have the claim. When questioned, GEMA will simply say they'll look into it, but never will, or will never notify anyone of the results of that action.

Been there, still dealing with it.

wa
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