“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.