Google reportedly dishes $100M for new and original YouTube content
According to a recent tweet by Wall Street Journal's Marketplace Editor, Dennis K. Berman, Google is reportedly putting up $100 million for new, original content on YouTube, including a big deal with Tony Hawk, the retired professional skateboarder and actor.
Context & Ripple Effects
Four years after Google moved YouTube ahead as an acquisition bet, the site is reportedly getting its first serious original-programming budget: a $100 million fund for new content, sourced to a tweet by WSJ Marketplace Editor Dennis K. Berman and still unconfirmed by Google. The reported anchor deal is with Tony Hawk, a celebrity name rather than a media company.
The report lands in a week where Google was already acting like a media promoter — front-page promotion of Will.I.Am's Google+ profile and a Black Eyed Peas Hangout — even as it closed the confirmed $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition. Funding original video would extend that celebrity-first playbook from promotion into production.
First-order effects
- YouTube's role changes from hosting whatever users upload to commissioning content: Google becomes a buyer of original programming, with Tony Hawk the first named beneficiary if the rumored deal holds.
- Celebrities and their producers gain a new check to cash — a platform paying upfront for exclusive video rather than sharing ad revenue after the fact.
Second-order effects
- Traditional TV and cable programmers face a new competitor for talent and ad dollars, since a $100M fund prices original web video against broadcast budgets.
- Rival video platforms and portals would need to answer with their own content funds or risk losing celebrity exclusives to whoever pays upfront.
Third-order effects
- If the fund proves out, the structural shift is from user-generated aggregation to platform-commissioned programming — video sites competing with networks on originals while keeping the long tail underneath.
- A recurring content budget also deepens Google's exposure to media economics — rights, exclusivity, and talent deals — beyond its advertising core, a dependency it has not carried before.
The trend: Video platforms are moving from distributing user uploads to funding original celebrity content, turning hosts into buyers in the television-style content market.