YouTube, which introduced overlay advertising into its video clips on the channels of certain "qualified" content producers, is allowing some producers, including CBS, to sell advertising themselves, on their own terms.
Breaking the news on this is my colleague Daisy Whitney of TV Week who visited YouTube’s San Bruno headquarters to interview Jordan Hoffner who heads content partnerships. She posted this interview earlier today on her New Media Minute blog.
Update: April 7: Whitney details some of YouTube’s strategy in this article in TV Week.
As far as we understood, all ads were sold by YouTube. The ad rates charged to advertisers were calculated on a CPM cost-per-thousand basis. We understand that the CPM was about the same for all publishers, as was the revenue split.
The game has changed: What this means is the certain content producers are now free to sell ads on their YouTube channel at market rates. So producers of content which reach a more desirable audience can charge more. Now, with the new YouTube analytics, it would appear that content creators can make a more detailed sales presentation of the demographics of its channels.
This is a big deal. We don’t know how many publishers will be permitted to sell their own ad inventory on YouTube, but it is an important development.
Nice scoop, Daisy!
— Andy Plesser
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