Liz Tucker hosts YouTube event with WFTV - 2 November 2020

Last night, Chair and Acting CEO Liz Tucker hosted a WFTV event with YouTube’s EMEA Head of Originals Luke Hyams and international production lead Kelly Sweeney.

YouTube’s Luke Hyams revealed to Liz the global popularity of British content on the service and urged producers to pitch ideas with international appeal. He said that 83% of the views to UK-produced YouTube videos come from overseas and is seeking ideas that “really speak to a UK audience” that can then travel the world.

Luke claimed that British creativity is “stronger than ever, especially when it comes to YouTube” and called for producers to go “beyond the constraints of tradition”.

His colleague, Kelly Sweeney, said that the forthcoming instalment of its How To Be… doc strand featuring popstar Anne-Marie, is due to be published at 1pm GMT, earlier than usual, to capitalise on her strong Asian fan-base.

The decision was taken as data showed that this was the best time to build an audience, after the trailer for Renowned Films’ doc was posted at a similar time.

“We definitely programme for a UK audience, but we would be wrong to not look where we could also serve other audiences,” she said.

Liz asked Luke and Kelly what advice they would give for WFTV members looking to pitch ideas to YouTube. Both of them gave out their direct contact details and Luke re-iterated YouTube’s “four buckets” of programming - music, learning and education, kids and family and ‘personalities’ – with particular focus on the latter.

Production companies are advised to build relationships with contributors with a significant following on the platform to generate ideas that the creator would not normally be able to produce alone.

While creators with at least 2m subscribers are preferred, Hyams said that factors including the average number of views per video and the watch times also contribute significantly.

The event finished with questions from the audience.

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