The Google Inc. unit will premiere “Home” tomorrow, a film about the environment produced by Besson, who has previously directed “The Fifth Element,” “Nikita” and “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.”
“Were more than just dogs on skateboards,” said Anthony Zameczkowski, a Paris-based partner development manager for YouTube in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “With us, you have the ability to reach 350 million unique users a month.”
As sales of DVDs falter, filmmakers and rights holders are increasingly looking to ad-funded sites like YouTube and the U.S.s Hulu.com to attract a wider audience and save on marketing costs. YouTube is eager to turn its first profit by attracting previously reluctant advertisers to support professional film and TV show content.
“The existing short-form model on YouTube is popular with users, but not with advertisers uncomfortable being next to content that is amateur and uncontrolled,” said Clayton Moran, an analyst at New York-based Benchmark Co., who rates Google shares “buy.”
Seeking Profit
YouTube earns money from only about 3 percent of all videos on the site, mainly because of hesitancy by advertisers and concern that some user-generated content may violate copyright protection laws, according to an April report by Credit Suisse. A lack of uniformity on how ads are displayed on the site also complicates buying and takes time, according to the report.
Credit Suisse estimates YouTubes revenue will rise 20 percent to $240 million in 2009. Sales for the year at Google may reach $16.9 billion, the average of 28 analysts estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Before today, Mountain View, California-based Google had gained 40 percent in Nasdaq Stock Market trading this year.
Last month, YouTubes Zameczkowski was at the Cannes Film Festival to encourage filmmakers to consider the site for long- format projects. It currently hosts a channel called “The Screening Room,” which showcases independent and short films handpicked by a YouTube film editor.
Terror Creatures
In April, the new categories “Movies” and “Shows” were introduced on YouTubes U.S. site, supported by ads that run in the start, middle and end of a segment, Zameczkowski said. The films are mostly older and more obscure, such as “Death Duel of Kung Fu,” “Terror Creatures From the Grave” and “His Girl Friday,” from studios such as Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
YouTube now has the equivalent of 90,000 full-length films uploaded in one week, or 15 hours of content added every minute, Zemeczkowski said.
The site premiered its first film in the U.S. in October with Wayne Wangs “The Princess of Nebraska.” The debut, from the director whose previous films include “The Joy Luck Club” and “Smoke” with Harvey Keitel, initially attracted more than 140,000 views, Dale said.
“Their strategy makes a lot of sense and its also in response to increased competition, where Hulu is a main competitor,” Benchmark Co.s Moran said. Other YouTube rivals include ABC.com, MySpace and the U.K.s LoveFilm.com.
Legal Advantage
Hulu, partly owned by News Corp. and General Electric Co.s NBC Universal, is a TV Internet streaming service mostly airing shows such as “Family Guy” and “The Simpsons.”
Viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube and other Google sites in March, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore Inc. said April 28. News Corp.s fully owned sites such as MySpace were the second most-watched Internet video destination with 437 million viewings, followed by Hulus 380 million and Yahoo! Inc.s 335 million.
A key benefit of sites like YouTube and Hulu is they are legal, which may help curb rates of illegal downloading. The worldwide motion picture industry lost $18.2 billion in 2005 because of piracy, according to the most recent study by the Motion Picture Association of America. Piracy was the highest in China, Russia and Thailand.