*This article on Youtube Budget is picking up from the previous blog article: Are Netflix and YouTube Really the New Television
Concluding on the topic of Netflix and YouTube operating as network stations for the 21st Century: We know that Netflix operates on studio sized budgets. Today, we will examine the budget of a YouTube video. YouTube is now a combination of corporate channels and amateurs. There is the potential (or at least fantasy) for any amateur to go viral and have their postings become a viable source of income.
Low Budget under 100,000 views
Approx. Episode Cost: $1,000
Biographics: NDG
The newest of the Simon Whistler channels, Biographics is rather low on the views spectrum. They air new episodes once a week. The budget is based on research, editing, and Simon’s narration recording.The tone of the video is speaking to the week it was posted but the overall video will serve as an online for decades to come. Watch a couple minutes of this episode about Neil deGrasse Tyson. Biographics tries to spice up the visual appeal of the video with overhanging close-ups to the narrator and sharp contrast of colors reminiscent of a McG music video.
Low Budget with 5 Million Views
Juns Kitchen: Cooking for cats
Approx. Episode Cost: $500
Low budget can also be high views. But did you remember to cast cats? Juns Kitchen is a cooking show with some episodes of cooking for cats. Notice the great upbeat music. Because it is swing music from the 1930’s it is most likely public domain. The lighting could be better. This video was setting a mood and much of the channel’s other work is better but to find out more about using practical lighting click here. The bulk of the budget for the videos is the initial costs of the camera and lights. The individual video costs are all editing based. This channel’s videos could also use some text, especially for recipes.
Medium Budget with 1 million views
Worth It: $2,500 Pizza
Approx. Episode Cost: $10,000
One of the many BuzzFeed videos. This is a program within a channel. The other two examples are from channels that air episodes of one program. BuzzFeed lumps several shows into one channel. While the food costs might be waived for the production as a promotional for the restaurant the talent, editing and travel costs build up to a more than modest production. This is where a larger entity business can reduce risk by diversification. Everyone likes pizza, so enjoy a good old street slice or a gold-leaf squid-ink caviar monstrosity.
We can talk about High Views – High Budget. The YouTube Red original movie Lazer Team costs $2.5 million and has 10 million views. This is funded by YouTube and brings the prestige of their original content. This is not very much bang for the buck. Also, this article intends to show how YouTube is the gateway for 3rd party companies to produce and air their own videos.
There is a thing called Low Views – High Budget but we’ll save those examples for a blog on “What Went Wrong?”
Of course, professionally looking corporate videos can be done on a budget. Advertising a product and entertaining a crowd are not the same aim. Ads should be entertaining. The videos we are analyzing border more on educational or informational. YouTube seems to take over the Reality TV market more than Netflix. Both have mixed script/interview/documentary content but each does one of them significantly better.
If you are analyzing the data of what type of shows will yield the highest return rate then cooking up a storm is the what you need. Oh, and cute cats can’t hurt.
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