Culling at YouTube Network -- WSJ
February 24 2017 - 2:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Ben Fritz
Walt Disney Co. is laying off about 80 people as it radically
shrinks the number of YouTube video creators supported by its Maker
Studios unit, said a person close to the company.
Disney has been integrating Maker, which it acquired in 2014 for
$675 million, into its consumer-products and interactive-business
unit since December in an attempt to find a winning strategy for
the business, which had been flailing. Some of those losing their
jobs were Maker employees and others worked for the consumer
products unit's digital-publishing division, which employs several
hundred people. One aim is to eliminate job duplication as the two
merge.
Rather than providing more than 60,000 YouTube creators with
support promoting their channels and selling ads, Maker is aiming
to work with roughly 300 who have large followings and are well
suited to work with other Disney divisions, the knowledgeable
person said. One example already in the works is a show on YouTube
hosted by Maker personality Alexys Gabrielle tied to the "Oh My
Disney" website featuring games, interviews and skits promoting
other franchises from the company.
The unit will no longer be in the business of supporting
fledgling YouTube video producers looking to gain visibility as
part of a larger and diverse network.
The vast majority of people in Maker's YouTube network have made
very little money, current and former employees said.
Since Disney acquired it, Maker has never been profitable and
while it has increased its parent company's digital advertising and
technological capabilities, it hasn't been as financially
successful as the media giant hoped, people with knowledge of the
business said.
The reductions for the creator network were in the works before
Disney last week severed ties with Maker's highest profile creator,
YouTube megastar PewDiePie, following Wall Street Journal inquiries
about videos in which he made anti-Semitic jokes.
Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 24, 2017 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)
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