It’s the first of 96 partners producing professional content for the site: LA-based Clevver Media launched its channel on YouTube 11/11, as a Spanish-language entertainment news destination. Google’s YouTube is pumping about $100 million into original programming with a variety of partners that will go live over the next year including The Wall Street Journal, World Wrestling Entertainment, rapper Jay-Z, Madonna, skateboarder Tony Hawk and Disney Interactive Media. The Internet search engine also recently unveiled a revamped version of its Google TV service. The new YouTube channels will be part of that offering.
ClevverTeVe, at www.YouTube.com/ClevverTeVe, debuted with three original programs: Teve Hollywood, a daily entertainment news show covering the latest headlines from Hollywood; Radar Latino, a daily news show covering Latin celebs and entertainment headlines; and Teve Moda, a twice-per-week show featuring celebrity fashion coverage. Facebook and Twitter integration are included.
The channel’s videos range from 75 seconds to a minute and a half. Plans are in place to add about 60 videos per week.
This winter, privately-held Clevver Media also plans to launch ClevverNews, a daily entertainment news channel and ClevverStyle, a beauty and fashion channel. Clevver already serves more than 60 million views per month on YouTube to 650,000 unique users.
RBR-TVBR observation: Google is dead-set on monetizing the vast audience that visits YouTube each and every day. By showing that it can offer up professional TV-quality content with a variety of partners, it aims to score larger media buys from agencies and advertisers. Yes, Google will likely be in next year’s television upfront, probably with demographically-matched packages that include traditional YouTube user video content paired with the new professional content.
