Children's Media Conference - Changemaker Talk

This week I gave a ‘change maker’ speech at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield. My main point was that while people understand that YouTube is a big and important content platform they’re often unwilling to give credit to the actual content - the videos themselves - on the platform.

I’m not sure how well it went down with the assorted producers, commissioners and other TV folk but people were very polite, as they always are.

Anyway here’s a tarted-up version of what I was trying  to say, along with some of the images I used (hey, we’re a digital company, right). 

//stumbles onto stage//

Hello there. My name is Rich Keith and, as the intro said, I am the Chief Revenue Officer of the Yogscast.  

Once dubbed the UK’s kings of YouTube by the BBC, the Yogscast is a family of YouTube and Twitch channels creating personality-led entertainment, focussed on video games and geek culture.

But I’m here to talk about change. 

Our friend Karl here said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.

However when it comes to change in mainstream culture its always seemed to me that it tends to work the other way around, starting out as a farce and then ending in tragedy.

Usually what happens is that the new entrant is first ridiculed as niche or irrelevant and when they stick around and pick up popularity they're patronised before being colonised or copied by the mainstream.

Eventually, however, the new reality takes over and - and often it’s as much to do with economic factors as anything else - the new entrant becomes the mainstream and the former mainstream incumbents either become the thing they at first saw as farcical or are destroyed by it.

Tragic, right? 

Whichever way it works the mainstream has changed and been subsumed by what was once a ridiculed outsider.

This is the power of change. All driven by real people choosing something new and then sticking with it.  

I’ve seen this process work when I worked in magazines, where content websites were first ridiculed then patronized and then copied, all the while devastating the business models of magazine companies along the way.  

The mistake was to misunderstand what magazines were. Because much of the cost was in distribution and paper they thought that those were part of the product. But the product was what the consumer valued, which was the words and images. Words and images that could be delivered in lots of alternative ways. 

The situation with broadcast media is that  they understand that the platform, specifically YouTube, is big and important; that it’s hugely popular and influential with a young audience. And that channels and networks like ours are helping to change the landscape. 

But they don’t value the content - the videos - on that big and important platform. They look at toy opening or gaming or vlogging videos and dismiss them as low quality.  As cheaply made rubbish. 

YouTubers and streamers are valued about as highly as funny cats. 

Part of the problem, or perhaps a symptom, is that marketers have categorized social media stars as ‘influencers’, ready to be packaged and used as marketing tools.  

And they *are* influential with their communities. However if you’re a program maker hiring a YouTuber to be on a show or front a brand, while it will get your show or brand noticed, you're missing the point. 

The reason they’re popular, the reason they have big communities for you to market to is because the audience loves their content. 

They’re not watching while they wait for ‘real’ content to start appearing on YouTube. They’re not hanging about for the economic model to enable traditional programming on YouTube. They’re there because they reject traditional content. 

Another danger of the patronizing phase is looking at all this as just kids in bedrooms. Even if they *are* in a bedroom these are companies. And some of them will rise from the bedroom to become entertainment companies. For instance, there are 60 hours of Yogscast video watched every day, which dwarves most linear TV channels. And we’re not the biggest out there. To assume that these companies, already wielding huge audiences, are not a threat is to tempt tragedy. 

Companies that are created out of YouTube, as we were, have the means to disrupt and change broadcast media.

We are built for digital video with an economic model that fits the medium and an audience that isn’t hanging around waiting for high budget productions and expensive stars. 

What they want is authenticity. They want real people and voices. They seek personalities. Personalities not much removed from themselves. 

If you do understand this and want to avoid tragedy then I suggest you look deeper into what’s turning kids with a camera and a console in their bedrooms into stars with millions of followers.

I suggest you choose not to reject the content that there audiences value so highly. 

And failing that then partner with people who do understand it before it’s too late. 

Thank you for listening. 

//stumbles off stage//