YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Calls YouTube “Complementary” To Traditional TV

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki believes Google’s online video site and traditional media fit together quite well. In a guest column on Variety, Wojcicki expresses her desire for traditional media creators to learn how to effectively use Google’s online video site within their own industries.

Wojcicki urges creators within TV, film, and other forms of more established media to start considering different ways to incorporate YouTube into their business models. YouTube’s CEO says that while TV and YouTube are essentially both video, their formats and purposes differ, which makes the two media types incredibly complementary. She notes how Disney was made well aware of the power of YouTube during the Frozen online video frenzy and the Mouse House’s purchase of Maker Studios in March 2014 (for a hefty $500 to $950 million), is recognition of the fact that film and YouTube are two different mediums, but they can have a very positive synergistic effect. “Being online and in short format enables creators to express themselves in really different ways to a global audience,” Wojcicki explains in her column.

In terms of television, YouTube’s head honcho and mother of now five children references late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s work on YouTube as an example of how that medium can effectively leverage the online video platform. Kimmel is known for asking viewers to upload videos to YouTube to be featured in segments like “I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy.” This tactic has helped Kimmel’s YouTube channel gain 5 million subscribers and drive even more interest in his linear TV show and individual YouTube creators alike.

Wojcicki also notes how YouTube generates an ecosystem of engagement, as “creators speak out to the audiences, and the audiences speak back to the creators.” The CEO explains how easy it is for creators to incorporate feedback and ideas from their fans, or even support those fans in their own endeavors (as Disney has done with many Mickey Mouse-themed YouTube channels like Working with Lemons and its recent All-Star Creator Conference).

“Now that we have these creators who have established so many ways of using the platform successfully, we’ll continue to see new adoption,” Wojcicki writes. “It’s a great opportunity for more traditional formats to embrace the Internet.”