Enlarge (credit: YouTube)
Variety reports that Google’s original video content group, YouTube Originals, is dead. The YouTube division was founded six years ago to make exclusive, original content for the pay-per-month YouTube Premium service. Now, the group is being shuttered, and YouTube’s global head of original content, Susanne Daniels, is leaving the company in March.
Just after the news broke, YouTube Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl posted a statement on Twitter:
An update on YouTube Originals: pic.twitter.com/PixhgZ2yhU
— Robert Kyncl (@rkyncl) January 18, 2022
YouTube is the web’s de facto video site, but Google still tends to chase any hot new web video trend that appears. YouTube Shorts is a clone of TikTok. YouTube Gaming is a clone of Twitch. YouTube Stories was meant to be an answer to Snapchat. YouTube Originals was a swipe at Netflix, which, in 2016, was turning heads with award-winning shows like House of Cards and Orange