Youtube India And The Silver Screen

YouTube Fan Fest just happened a few days back in Mumbai and one thing it shows is that the exponential rate at which YouTube is growing.Channels now have started mushrooming on YouTube across all genres. We are now seeing online creators break open the gates for a whole new kind of entertainment for Indians. Thousands of creators have emerged in India winning fans globally, in music, food, tech, kids and learning, among other categories. For example.

Sanam Puri, Samar Puri, Venky S., and Keshav Dhanraj who started their channel Sanam in 2012, today, have over one million subscribers. The popularity garnered enabled them to perform at live events, too. Sanam Puri, the face of the channel, has also sung for several Hindi films.

Although YouTube is known to have young audience, the content creators are not defined by age. Take the case of Nisha Madhulika, 57, who started out as a food blogger and turned to YouTube in 2011 and now earns in 6 figures. Also extremely talented actors such as Gopal Dutt and Gajraj Rao, garnered a new breed of fans in the younger demographic. The result was seen in this years filmfare award.

Lastly, Bhuwan Bam the most subscribed YouTuber in India, filmed using the front facing camera on a phone by himself.I think that our generation likes a versatile entertainer like BB who is a music composer, singer and a comedian. He is now interviewing SRK , Karan Johar and collaborating with international influencers like Amanda Cerny.

There are three ways to make money on YouTube; the easiest is by signing up for Google AdSense - one who signs up gets 55 per cent of the advertising revenue from a video, while YouTube keeps the rest. The rates vary depending on the number of viewers a channel has and the country it is from. Creators can also earn money through brand integrations in videos, and through sponsored videos. However, only those who are very popular and get millions of views on their videos can expect to earn significantly.

“YouTube monetisation is much smaller than what a lot of people imagine it to be. It depends on how much we spend," says Scherezade Shroff, who has a fashion channel on YouTube with over 1 lakh subscribers. When she started her channel back in 2013, she didn't make much money. Now after three years, the investments have started to pay off. "It is a lucrative arrangement," Shroff claims, but it takes time - to establish yourself on the platform and gain subscribers.

The platform has nurtured several digital media entertainment companies and multi-channel networks that compete with the larger TV networks. Just like TV shows, these digital networks hire actors, and for monetisation depend on brand integrations and sponsorships. The Viral Fever (TVF), creator of the fiction web series such as Permanent Roommates and Pitchers, was launched on YouTube in 2011. Arunabh Kumar, its founder and CEO, had initially started the company as a production house. After constant rejection from TV networks, he started dabbling on YouTube. Today, it is the fourth most subscribed channel in India, has a 100 employees and, Kumar claimed, is "bigger than MTV and Channel V in India".