YouTube Red now called YouTube Premium (I am still grandfathered in as a red user) has been pushing its original content hard and it’s paying off in a big way for YouTube. YouTube has two paid offering that gives access to their original content YouTube Premium and YouTubeTV.

YouTube Red was originally designed as a way for users to have an ad-free experience and help content creators fight ad blockers in web browsers that were causing them to lose ad revenue. Then YouTube Red decided to offer included bonuses like a Google Play Music subscription and original content by top YouTube stars.

Despite great success with YouTube stars creating original content YouTube decided to expand its premium offering to include professional actors and quality production value for shows like Cobra Kai, Lifeline, and Impulse with I am sure more to come in the near future.

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YouTube Red has released numbers saying that Rhett & Link’s YouTube Red original series did about 11 million viewers and that 5.4 million people watched the first episode of Cobra Kai over the course of its first day live. Which goes to show the number of subscriptions that YouTube has for its paid services.

YouTube Red originals are great for getting users onto the paid service which in turn brings YouTube revenue and helps YouTube content creatures get paid for content if users are not watching ads. The YouTube Red originals help YouTube as well by drawing in bigger advertisers for YouTube and helping them compete in the original content market with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and many others.

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When you look at the Cobra Kai viewing numbers they are number two with 36 million viewers they are on point with other services original content viewership. According to statista.com Cobra Kai had 36 million views right behind Netflix’s hit show 13 Reasons Why. Since Cobra Kai is a YouTube Red original users are watching it via one of YouTube’s paid services that can be any of the ones I listed earlier but it goes to show that original content is paying off for YouTube in a big way with 36 million paid subscribers of their services.

Do I think everyone is subscribing to YouTube to watch there premium content no I don’t? I do think it helps them add value to existing services, for example, someone may need a service like YouTubeTV and when they are shopping around for TV service they may get YouTube TV because they see they get YouTube Originals with it included and they have been meaning to watch one of the shows.

The YouTube originals are competing with big-name players in the on-demand content market. Do I think YouTube originals are as good as the offerings of Netflix, HBONOW, and Amazon as of this writing no? Many of the shows I have not watched and don’t fit my interests but down the road, you never know what they may release something I like we will have to see what is released.