YouTube's $100B creator payouts redefine media's financial landscape
YouTube redistributes more than 50 per cent of its turnover to the beneficiaries and since 2021, it has redistributed $100 billion (€86.7bn), according to Justine Ryst, CEO of You Tube France and Southern Europe, speaking at Series Mania in Lille.
"It is 20 billion more than Netflix's investment in content. We don't finance upstream, we don't order content," Ryst advised.
"YouTube is not here to replace television, in the broadcasting sense. Our platform is the best ally of broadcasters and producers. It was the users who decided that YouTube was the first screen in the United States, the second in France and the United Kingdom," she added.
Stressing that the platform's business model was "unique and fundamentally different," she advised about audiences, referring to "the complementarity" free broadcasters found on YouTube. And on the pay-TV side, she cited Canal+ as an example, which uses the platform as a clear channel, broadcasting the first episodes of its original creations.
"YouTube brought 7 per cent of Canal+ subscribers and 8.7 per cent of Sky Italia subscribers, " Ryst asserted.
Content creators were also urged to keep an eye on YouTube talent. "YouTubers are now producers and they arrive on your playground," noted Ryst, declaring herself a fervent advocate of 'hybridisation'.
