“Five, six years ago, we probably were still seeing [YouTube] as a marketing platform,” for example, as a place to release a trailer. Helen O’Donnell, vp of content & creators at BBC Studios, didn’t mince any words during a panel on the final day of the inaugural StreamTV Europe event in Lisbon, Portugal.
Things have changed since then. “It’s really creating a front door to some of our shows,” she shared about the Google-owned online video giant. “Some people like to have a deep interaction with that show by watching it on TV, but other people like to engage with it on one of our digital platforms,” O’Donnell explained in a panel session entitled “Creators vs. Hollywood: How Can Mainstream Media Thrive in a Creator-Driven World?” “That means we have formed a really integrated digital brand proposition where we have channels, which put out not just clips, but also original content for audiences based on the platform on which that is going on.”
All in all, YouTube and BBC Studios are happy to collaborate. “We’re less worried about where our audiences sit, as long as it’s a front door and a window to some of our great [content],” the executive concluded.
In January, the BBC and YouTube unveiled a landmark deal, under which the U.K. public broadcaster will produce original content for the online video powerhouse, which has disrupted traditional TV and increasingly positioned itself as a partner for TV networks.
O’Donnell highlighted in Lisbon on Wednesday how much of the collaboration with YouTube required traditional sector players to change the way they think and approach the business.
“We’re a genre structure organization, so we would have discussions of whether [Chicken Shop Date creator] Amelia Dimoldenberg should be talking to our factual entertainment team or our entertainment team,” she told the StreamTV Europe crowd. “And that’s a problem of our making, not hers. She’s brilliant and going out and delivering brilliant content to audiences. So that’s why we now look at a fandom structure, utilizing our brands and our content to reach out to fandoms, as opposed to thinking about it in a genre structure.”
