Sunny Side of the Doc | 19-22 June 2023

Documentary Business

Peter Hamilton Consultants, Inc

“Women Stay Home!” The Message at YouTube’s Game-changers Conference 2012

The Google / YouTube behemoth recently gathered 150+/- video industry players to an exclusive strategic conference in San Bruno CA.

  • The event: Tune In to YouTube 2012.

We made inquiries about who attended.

And which category of video industry professionals did we find was absent from the list?

  • Women!

Just look at the data:

  • Of the 150 +/- television game-changers attending, around 5 were women!!
  • That’s right: 5!

According to one participant, “there was a bunch of confidential information they shared with us about what’s coming up… and what was still being baked in their brainiac ovens.”

This wasn’t about search theorem’s and storage farms:

  • The mission was:  Change the face of television as we know it!
  • Right after the Conference, YouTube announced the rollout of 100 niche channels.
  • Many of them are Factual.

What’s Going On Here?

  • Is this data a speck on the choppy seas of history?
  • Or does it tap into the tide itself?

Some thoughts:

  • The Social Network Paradigm: The very Male culture of engineers, techies and VC’s dominates the Silicon Valley home of YouTube and the new, search-based video market.
  • Women lead in the story-based entertainment sector that in North America is located in LA, New York and in other pockets.
  • YouTube content is often comprised of branded, celebrity-driven vignettes.  This is an emerging content area that we hadn’t considered in terms of opportunities by gender. Maybe the ‘genre’ is evolving like Sports Television as a mainly Male preserve?
  • What do you think? Your comments are most welcome.

And Who’s Getting the Work?

Here’s the announcement from YouTube: “More Great Content Creators Coming to YouTube.”

Production companies include:

  • @radical.media, BermanBraun, Electus, FremantleMedia, Katalyst, Lionsgate, Magical Elves and Vuguru
  • And here is Real Screen’s useful report on the announcement.


!!THE SWEET SPOTS!!
‘Sweet Spots’ Study: What Do U.S. Networks Pay for Programs?

Production Cost Benchmarks: Signature / High / Sweet Spot / Low
Pipelines. Target Demos.
Key Programming Contacts, and More!

25+ U.S. Cable Channels:
Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, ID, Velocity, Bravo,
Documentary Channel, A&E, History, HI, Bio, Nat Geo, NG Wild, Ovation,
truTV, SyFy and many more
!
Docs & Reality
Proprietary, interview-based research
Don’t make a pitch – or attend a job interview – without it!
Learn More …


Next: The DocumentaryTelevision.com Channel and the Pawn Stars Case Study

  • The panel was comprised of Brent Montgomery (Leftfield Pictures), Rob Miller (Peleton Entertainment) and Mary Donahue (Executive Producer, History).
  • It’s full of fascinating insights into the rise and rise of a hit show from the perspectives of the channel, producer and agent.  Thanks to our generous and respected panelists!
  • Our audience: the New York State Bar Association’s Entertainment Law section.  Thanks to Pamela Jones Attorney for co-producing.

1 comments

  1. Thanks for noticing the lack of women at this conference. Unfortunately most of the YouTube partners in the UGC area are young guys and of course the majority of the companies you list who will provide professional content to YouTube are owned by men.

    I hope YouTube isn’t going to be repeat of the TV business where most of the content is supplied by big companies. I can only hope that viewers will watch indie content so that we will all benefit.

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