YouTube plans to produce a half-dozen original series that will be available for free on the world’s most popular video website, a big expansion of the Google-owned company’s programming and efforts to attract advertisers.
Comedian Kevin Hart, talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres and the comedy duo Rhett & Link are producing unscripted shows that will debut this year, YouTube will announce at an event for advertisers in New York Thursday. Alphabet Inc.’s Google also will increase its spending on YouTube Red, a paid video and music streaming service launched in October 2015.
In the process, YouTube hopes it will attract premium advertising as well, helping it shed a somewhat tarnished image that, as of late, has been associated with advertiser boycotts over hate videos and other questionable user-uploaded content.
As part of its push into more original programming, YouTube has signed up comedian Kevin Hart and TV host Ellen DeGeneres as its first two high-profile entertainers. At the NewFronts conference in New York this evening, Hart said he’s linking up with YouTube to get closer to his fans. “If you know me, if you follow me, you know that I embrace social media on a very high level,” Hart told the crowd. He also mentioned that, on his most recent Europe tour, fans kept mentioning YouTube as a source of discovery. “That's how I got my international fan base.”
Hart’s show, “Kevin Hart: What the Fit?,” will be a workout-focused program distributed through his own YouTube channel, Laugh Out Loud Network. DeGeneres, on the other hand, will use her show to give fans backstage looks at the making of her talkshow.
Katy Perry and Demi Lovato also announced new behind-the-scenes shows with YouTube at NewFronts, while TV and radio personality Ryan Seacrest is confirmed to be producing a music competition, “Best.Cover.Ever,” to debut on the site later this year. Beyond traditional celebrities, YouTube is leaning on its existing online talent with two shows, one from internet comedy dup Rhett & Link and another from high-speed camera effects specialists The Slow Mo Guys.
The company will fund more than 40 original shows and movies in the next year, spending hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a person familiar with the plans. YouTube is betting high-profile stars will attract more advertisers like Johnson & Johnson, which is sponsoring “Best.Cover.Ever,” a music competition from Ryan Seacrest that’s scheduled for later this year.
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