Motor Trend announced that they’re leaving YouTube. I think that’s a huge mistake.
Saying that Youtube is dead as a platform and isn’t worth your time is as foolhardy a statement as saying that print is dead. Motor Trend recently announced that they’re not going to post their big video content on their YouTube account but will use the space for teasers, promos and the like. Instead, Motor Trend will post their video content on their own hosting service which you can access as a paid subscriber service. I think this is a big mistake not taking advantage of the 5M subscribers that they have and a move where subscribers, like me, won’t make the switch to their paid subscription service.
Shortly after Motor Trend made this announcement, one of the more level-headed outlets, The Fast Lane Car, posted up an impromptu poll asking if you, “Would still watch MT content through a standalone subscription.” Close to 90 percent out of 830 votes said ‘No.’ I didn’t vote, but I would’ve also voted ‘No.’
In my opinion, paying for JUST Motor Trend content seems to niche a genre of videos that I just don’t have the budget for. It’s bad enough that the average online user already pays for their internet service, a video service like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and presumably one or two other specialty subscription services online. To add another standalone subscription and it starts to eat away at your budget.
The fact remains, ad revenue on Youtube for content creators has gone down. In response, some YouTubers have gotten savvy and started their own revenue streams like Patreon or focused on making more videos to pick up the slack, among other strategies. But to say YouTube is a sinking ship is a bit premature in my opinion.
I wouldn’t say that YouTube has a monopoly on shareable video content right now but…YouTube has a monopoly. If I were a betting man, YouTube is going to be around for a lot longer than we think. Their ad revenue model will, once again, change and evolve to better make the company profitable. That means they’re going to need their content creators to stick around to make it viable. They’re going to need content. There’s always going to be money on the table.
Motor Trend has 5 Million subscribers. That’s huge for a car channel. That’s pretty much the entire state of Alabama or Colorado watching your videos (if everyone watched..but that’s a different story.) That kind of influence in the car community is uncanny.
Motor Trend’s videos are really good and for a reason. They’re high budget videos! I’m pretty sure that a budget on one of their comparison videos runs in the thousands. On YouTube, that’s just not sustainable.
Motor Trend should, in my humble humble humble opinion,reinvent itself on YouTube with a lower budget video that keeps the quality at the fraction of the price.
I don’t know what that looks like per se but, come on, there are a lot of bright minds in the TEN Network that can come up with some ideas.
There’s arguably a gaping hole that “The Fast Lane Daily” left behind. You could come up with a quirky “Lieberman’s Daily Vlogs” or something. Or even a Motor Trend office blog. I would watch the heck out of that, bring us around on video shoots, car unveils or auto shows. They did a bit of that on Periscope and I thought that was really awesome watching LIVE.
I’m just saying.
There are a lot of young people watching your stuff on YouTube. To move ALL of your video content onto your own servers would be alienating a larger chunk of your future demographic.
