Section:GDN 1N PaGe:22 Edition Date:190830 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 29/8/2019 19:45 cYanmaGentaYellow
- The Guardian Friday 30 Aug ust 2019
(^22) National
YouTube takes on BBC
with educational shows
aimed at UK audiences
Jim Waterson
Media editor
YouTube has stepped on the BBC’s toes
by commissioning a series of educa-
tional programmes aimed at British
audiences, partly in an attempt to
improve the site’s image after a run of
negative press.
YouTube Originals has ordered
programmes on the fall of the Berlin
Wall, a science series fronted by the
former T4 presenter Rick Edwards and
a philosophy series from a business
founded by Alain de Botton , as the
company increasingly blurs the lines
between an online platform and a
traditional broadcaster.
Asked whether the decision to
focus on public service material
was a response to media criticism,
YouTube’s head of original content,
Susanne Daniels , said: “ The short
answer would be yes.” She insisted
though that it also refl ected what was
popular on the site. “YouTube users
love educational content,” she said.
The programmes are among the
fi rst new commissions since YouTube
gave up its attempts to charge users
to watch specially commissioned,
television-standard shows and
cancelled many scripted dramas and
comedies that had struggled to make
an impact. The company, which is
owned by Google, accepted that it was
unable to compete with subscription
streaming companies such as Netfl ix
that have positioned themselves as
high-end products and are willing to
sink tens of millions of pounds into a
single production.
“We looked at how everyone in the
industry was launching [subscrip-
tion] services and we thought about
our core strengths and our 2 billion
unique users a month,” Daniels said.
YouTube will continue to commis-
sion professional programmes under
its Originals banner, but will act more
like a traditional broadcaster, selling
adverts during popular shows and
hoping to capitalise on the site’s enor-
mous reach.
Viewers will still be off ered the
option to pay extra if they want to
remove adverts, access behind-the-
scenes content and get advance access
to a series , a model described as giving
users the option to “pay with their
wallets or with their attention”.
YouTube increasingly dominates
video viewing among young Britons.
The average 18- to 34-year-old spend s
more than an hour a day on the site.
Daniels, however, said many people
who had become stars on YouTube
over the past decade still needed
support in making more ambitious
full-length programmes.
“I have found that YouTubers, who
are a tireless and enthusiastically
passionate group, need our help,” she
said. “They will tend toward the same
type of content and they are limited
as to their ability to make a show with
more scope, even if they’ve got follow-
ers and sponsors they’re still limited
with budget and access.”
Daniels also explained how she
use d YouTube’s data to inform
commissioning decisions, particularly
in identifying classic shows that could
be worthy of a reboot for younger audi-
ences. She commissioned the fl agship
YouTube Originals show Cobra Kai ,
a Karate Kid spin-off series, partly
because the data showed there was
already an audience for it: “ Karate Kid
is content that really interested our
heavy users ,” she said.
When the same production
company approached her with a pitch
for a reboot of the 1990s sitcom Mad
About You, the data identifi ed little
pre-existing interest, so she passed.
YouTube has been hit with wave
after wave of bad press , particularly
in the UK , as it struggles to police the
millions of hours of user-generated
content uploaded every day. Daniels, a
former MTV executive, said there were
parallels with other parts of the enter-
tainment industry. “ There’s always
issues with talent at every place. ”
Rick Edwards and
Alain de Botton
Activists plan drone protest
to ground Heathrow fl ights
PA Media
Environmental campaigners are plan-
ning to fl y drones around Heathrow in
a n attempt to ground fl ights.
Activists with Heathrow Pause, a
splinter group of Extinction Rebellion ,
for a number of days and potentially
longer. “From 13 September, we will
exploit a loophole in Heathrow air-
port’s health and safety protocols
and fl y toy drones within its restricted
zone,” the group said.
“It is our understanding that the
airport’s authorities will respond by
grounding all fl ights. Drones will not
be fl own in fl ight paths and there will
be no risk of harm to anyone.
“We know that we will be arrested.
We know that we face significant
prison sentences for our actions. We
have lives, we have families, we do
not wish to go to prison. But we are
steadfast in our resolve. We do this in
defence of life. We do it because our
consciences leave us no other choice
but to act.”
The group said activists would fl y
the small, lightweight drones within
the three-mile (5km) exclusion zone
surrounding the airport but they
would not be fl own above head height
or on fl ight paths.
Drones would be fl own at regu-
lar intervals and the airport given an
hour’s notice before each fl ight, ensur-
ing that to “comply with Heathrow’s
own rules, no aircraft flights will
take place”.
A Metropolitan police spokes-
woman said the force was aware of
the planned protest.
“Any drone fl own into the path of an
aircraft has the potential to cause great
harm and endanger those on board,”
she said. “Anyone caught illegally
using a drone within the proximity of
an airport can expect to be dealt with
in line with the law.”
The activists said they would meet
police and airport authorities today to
discuss their plans.
have said they will operate small
toy drones from 3am on Friday 13
September.
A spokesman for the organisation
said it expected “somewhere between
50 to a couple of hundred people” to
be involved in the action, with each
person using a drone.
The disruption is intended to last
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