YouTube Mexico attracts local media firms
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Online video has changed the way Latin music labels discover and market their artists -- but entertainment companies are hoping that YouTube Mexico's emphasis on local content will translate the medium into a significant revenue stream.
Heavy traffic from Mexican users to YouTube's main English site and Spain's country site motivated the company to launch a Mexican home page October 11, YouTube international product manager Luis Garcia says. Locally uploaded videos, such as one from 2006 of a little boy named Edgar falling into a river, "spiked globally" in popularity, Garcia says.
While a plan for local advertising on the site is in the works, YouTube is touring the country with mobile kiosks where staffers show users how to upload videos, Garcia says. "Before we think about the monetization aspect, we need to make sure the community finds the site interesting."
To that end, entertainment cable channel Exa TV signed on as a local content partner, along with newspaper El Universal, modeling agency Contempo Models and soccer site Medio Tiempo. Exa TV director Jorge Shahin says the channel uploads 65-70 clips per week, with everything from live musical performances to artist interviews. As a YouTube Mexico partner, Exa content is featured higher in artist search results and gets placement on the Mexico page's "promoted videos" section.
Within those results, sponsor-branded Exa programming is featured near the top, Shahin says, which creates an additional benefit to Exa's advertisers. Since Mexico's pay-TV audience is small, online video "is really TV on demand by subject," Shahin says. Weeks or months after a broadcast, "the brand can still make contact with relevant content to the consumer."
Exa TV also has a revenue-share agreement with YouTube and expects the content partnership to be reflected in the TV channel's advertising rates.
On the label side, an emphasis on local content via YouTube Mexico can increase exposure for local acts, Warner Music Mexico talent executive Alejandro Abaroa says. But not everyone who checks out the latest funny video online wants to pay for the songs, videos and ringtones the label has licensed from such YouTube phenoms as Coyoacan Joe and La Tigresa del Oriente.
"It's a beginning effort," Abaroa says of such deals, where quick timing is crucial. "Maybe next month it's not going to be a hit anymore. The minute you hear about it, you have to grab it."
Reuters/Billboard
