About a year ago we launched something called YouTube Red, which is our subscription service. And the way that I like to describe it is, it's really kind of a premium YouTube experience. One aspect of it is an uninterrupted, background supported, kind of offline enabled music listening experience. So if you're My hardcore music fan, we also launched a YouTube music app around the same time. The YouTube Red is the product that gives you kind of that most premium sort of music experience with the full breath of the YouTube catalog. But the other aspect of it, is access to original content. And so around the same time of launching YouTube Red We started to roll out content. Episodic series, documentaries, movies, under the umbrella of YouTube originals. And it's been about a year now. but the idea behind YouTube originals is to really lean into endemic creators that have already found Found enormous success on the YouTube platform in terms of their subscriber bases, in terms of the engagement that they have on the platform. And really invest in them, and allow them to kind of fulfill their long term vision around perhaps longer- form content. Like I said, an episodic series, maybe a documentary. So You know Lilly Singh is one of our big creators on the platform. We did a documentary with her. Did something called Scare PewDiePie with PewDiePie. We have 21 orignal pieces of content that we've released this year. I think we have a, Do another six before the end of the year and we have another full slate scheduled for next year. So it's relatively early days both for YouTube Red and for Originals, but we've been very happy with the success because what we found is Originals not only draw in an audience but they also really help with retention around YouTube Red .>> Right. And they also really Fulfill what our YouTube creators are looking to do, it has helped them also just in terms of kind of continuing to build out their subscriber base and just maintain that interest in the content that they're producing. What are success metrics for red? And are you succeeding right now? Yeah. So red is in its really early days. I describe it as kind of really in the first inning, if you will. It's been barely a year since we rolled it out. You know, we have a number of internal metrics that we've measured. MI think kind of my primary objective in the first year was making sure that the value proposition for Red really was something that resonated with consumers. >. Opposed to the classic YouTube experience. Yeah and basically what I mean there is that premium music experience that I described combined with this access to original content. And the good news is that both those pieces of the value Have resonated with consumers. They've both driven acquisition of subscribers but also retention and so our subscriber numbers, again, it's really early days, continue to grow kind of week over week, month over month. And Red; s gonna be one of those areas that we continue to focus on and double- down on. We're in a handful of countries, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico. Actually, a couple days ago we launched Red in Korea and so Our goal is to go international with it over the course of the next 18 months as well, and continue to invest. And from an executive standpoint, is Red a chance to try to diversify YouTube's revenue streams, right? So so much display and pre- role, and these classic media formats, subscription is also actually a classic media format. But But it's a different kind of revenue, is that the goal here to try to mix it up? Yeah, I think the goal is really two fold. One is to give consumers a choice, consumers can continue to enjoy YouTube they way that they have for years. Which is our ad supported model, you know access to content that way. Or they can pay for YouTube REd and get access to this original content, offline, background, all these uninterrupted sort of features and it just gives more choice to our consumers. That's one aspect of it but then I think there's the other aspect, which is to. Like you said, create additional revenue streams for our creators, so that they can invest in producing this great content that keeps bringing consumers back to the platform. [ NOISE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

YouTube Continues to Grow Original Content

Chief product officer Neal Mohan explains.
