New York Magazine's Vulture blog is reporting today that YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar will be building out the site's recently instated talent program (last July, the video-sharing site announced its YouTube Partner Grants Program to ramp up quality content) by offering big-name stars their own YouTube channels. Those stars would then fill the channels with original content, while also keeping complete control of those three-minute videos. YouTube, in turn, would rake in the ad revenue.
Vulture reports that YouTube is hoping to score 20 celebs, who will each get $5 million for their efforts.
It's no secret that YouTube has been trying to distinguish its content as something more than a morass of cat videos and guys getting hit in the junk. Parent company Google recently acquired Widevine, an on-demand video service known for its multiplatform DRM and adaptive streaming technologies, and the web has been buzzing for months about the possibility of it acquiring web video production company, New Next Networks.
While we're happy to see YouTube ramping up its quality control efforts, we can't help but think of the myriad talented stars already working in the space -- folks who already know how to effectively use the medium. We wonder if YouTube would be best served investing in its preexisting denizens, rather than a new crop of (bigger) names.