RE: Pay per view: PH Blog
Discussion
Good luck with this Chris. I am of the view that good content is worth paying for. Looks like your price is about the same as a magazine sub, and as I just cancelled my sub to CAR I know what to do with the saving. I shall give it a go and see if I think it is worth the money.
A shame that the man maths that you employ in justifying your car fleet cannot be employed to the videos, but I guess you need real-maths on one part of your life so you can use man-maths in the other.
Speaking of which, have you thought of selling the Chris Harris Car Purchase spreadsheet? I am sure there are quite a lot of people who would be willing to pay for something that justifies running an FF for 3 months!
A shame that the man maths that you employ in justifying your car fleet cannot be employed to the videos, but I guess you need real-maths on one part of your life so you can use man-maths in the other.
Speaking of which, have you thought of selling the Chris Harris Car Purchase spreadsheet? I am sure there are quite a lot of people who would be willing to pay for something that justifies running an FF for 3 months!
TheAntics said:
steve_n said:
£24.99 a year is too much based on the numbers outlined. All of a sudden this has the opportunity to turn into a multi-million pound pocket liner when all it would take to support the costs of these shoots is say £1 per person per year.
This is a shame as I really like Chris's work, there's nothing else quite like it as most other journos who try to do the same thing are simply too annoying to listen to!
I disagree....after a very quick look Drive channel produces c.8 videos per month (it varies but looks about right on average) this is across the various program formats, not just Harris videos.This is a shame as I really like Chris's work, there's nothing else quite like it as most other journos who try to do the same thing are simply too annoying to listen to!
Using the only info we have let's use £9k costs as an average cost per program. As described £9k only just covers costs for Chris so it seems fair.
That's £72k per month or £864,000 per year. Let's call the subscription £25 for the sake of argument.
Drive needs 34,560 subscribers to make this work. The current viewing figures do not represent future subscribers numbers as it is currently free content. I'd be interested to know what proportion of viewers they expect to convert to subscribers. If I was looking at it my guess would be 34K would be exceptionally difficult to gain.
One positive thing about monetising the channel would mean that each video would need to earn it's keep. I personally rarely enjoy the other content and mainly only view harris on cars. If Harris videos prove to be more popular generally then you would expect more of them to be made at the expense of the other poorly viewed content.
Let's assume the subscription channel makes 100 videos per year at an average cost of £5k per vid... That means a total cost base of £500k per year... Let's assume, for now, that total includes all insurance, equipment, salaries, overheads, etc...
At ~£25 a year per unique subscriber, the venture will need to attract and retain ~20k unique subscribers who pay for a full year of content (20k x £25 = £500k)... Factoring in monthly and annual churn, the venture may potentially need up to ~30k monthly and annual subscribers worldwide to break even...
For a benchmark, The Times UK newspaper has taken roughly 4 years to convert roughly ~3% of its wealthy global online readership to the paying firewall (equivalent to ~10% of its offline readership)...
PistonHeads claims ~250k unique active users worldwide... Assuming ~3% of them subscribe, that will give ~8k paying video subscribers by 2018 (rounded for simplicity)...
Another angle: a very quick and rough look at the article-mentioned YouTube channel suggests it could be getting an average of roughly 1.0 million clicks per video per year... Factoring in multiple clickers and mis-clickers, a reasonable guess would indicate 0.5 million worldwide unique users to the channel per year while it is currently completely free-of-charge... Assuming a 3% online-viewer conversion-rate to full payment in 4 years, that would indicate 15k paying subscribers by 2018, giving £375k of revenues in 2018...
In conclusion -- There is definitely a revenue opportunity, but a lid may need to be kept on production costs to make the venture profitable.
(* All numbers above are a wholly independent guesstimate, and they are intended solely for light-hearted discussion purposes only).
Good luck to the PH team for trying this video venture. It will be interesting to see how it pans out in the coming years. The article is a fascinating tiny peek into the UK motoring journalism business.
Think this will kill /Drive to be honest. There are so many other options for joint funding it seems to be a clear lack of thought into all other options. I'd have thought Chris would've learned from the subs based Drivers Republic.
The attraction to youtube & drive is the accessibility of the content, which has just been drastically reduced.
I would rather see sponsorship, subbable or Youtubes new Tip Jar function being introduced. Even a kick-starter campaign would be better received.
If people like Hank&John Green, DeFranco or Rooster Teeth (or even motortrend) can make a non subscription model work then Drive should be able too as well.
In summary, core content should be free with bonus footage/content for subscribers.
The attraction to youtube & drive is the accessibility of the content, which has just been drastically reduced.
I would rather see sponsorship, subbable or Youtubes new Tip Jar function being introduced. Even a kick-starter campaign would be better received.
If people like Hank&John Green, DeFranco or Rooster Teeth (or even motortrend) can make a non subscription model work then Drive should be able too as well.
In summary, core content should be free with bonus footage/content for subscribers.
Maldini35 said:
A new busines model is needed clearly (understandably it has to make money) but is this it?
Advertisers are looking to align to content that has viral potential - not necessarily globally but certainly within the right community.
Sticking great content behind a paywall that relatively few will see and cannot be shared will just kill it quicker I fear.
Yes the audience will be pure and committed but if there is not enough of them then the ad space can't be justified - unless there are some serious new developments in terms of interaction, data capture & convergence etc. to help prove the ROI.
I hope I'm wrong but the Times are still struggling having made this jump a few years ago. Media agencies just can't recommend it.
I genuinely wish you the best of luck, the world would be a poorer place without your execellent work.
There's much truth here. Advertisers are looking to align to content that has viral potential - not necessarily globally but certainly within the right community.
Sticking great content behind a paywall that relatively few will see and cannot be shared will just kill it quicker I fear.
Yes the audience will be pure and committed but if there is not enough of them then the ad space can't be justified - unless there are some serious new developments in terms of interaction, data capture & convergence etc. to help prove the ROI.
I hope I'm wrong but the Times are still struggling having made this jump a few years ago. Media agencies just can't recommend it.
I genuinely wish you the best of luck, the world would be a poorer place without your execellent work.
Chris,
The problem lies with the nature of the internet and the car enthusiast audience.
People watch free content on YouTube because it's an easy way to waste a few minutes while they should be working. For a lot of them, their commitment and enthusiasm is very ephemeral. Undoubtedly, there are a smaller number of real enthusiasts, for whom cars is there life-long passion. The problem will be most people won't care enough to pay and many of those that do, won't deem it worthwhile.
Using the newspaper industry as an example, you've tried being the Mail Online (but you'll need ten times the audience), I suspect trying the Times and the New York Times recipe won't work as you'll get too few subscribers and disappear into obscurity. Yes, you could try selling it to a network like Netflix, but I suspect the TV execs will want something more varied than Chris-going-sideways every week.
If I were you, Chris, I'd think about what you can give real enthusiasts beyond a longer edit of the same film.
Think about being the FT, who charge handsomely for content their readers can't live without.
jiggawhat2k said:
allgonepetetong said:
I'll admit I know very little about advertising but 2m hits generates £9.6k and 3.6m hits generates 18.4k in advertising revenue.
I'd say you need a new sales manager as this seems pathetically low income from such a high number of hits.
They only get paid if you don't skip the advert, skipping before the end means no charge is made to the advertiser, so they don't get their revenue either. Don't skip the ad, then they get about 20p!I'd say you need a new sales manager as this seems pathetically low income from such a high number of hits.
lamboman100 said:
TheAntics said:
steve_n said:
£24.99 a year is too much based on the numbers outlined. All of a sudden this has the opportunity to turn into a multi-million pound pocket liner when all it would take to support the costs of these shoots is say £1 per person per year.
This is a shame as I really like Chris's work, there's nothing else quite like it as most other journos who try to do the same thing are simply too annoying to listen to!
I disagree....after a very quick look Drive channel produces c.8 videos per month (it varies but looks about right on average) this is across the various program formats, not just Harris videos.This is a shame as I really like Chris's work, there's nothing else quite like it as most other journos who try to do the same thing are simply too annoying to listen to!
Using the only info we have let's use £9k costs as an average cost per program. As described £9k only just covers costs for Chris so it seems fair.
That's £72k per month or £864,000 per year. Let's call the subscription £25 for the sake of argument.
Drive needs 34,560 subscribers to make this work. The current viewing figures do not represent future subscribers numbers as it is currently free content. I'd be interested to know what proportion of viewers they expect to convert to subscribers. If I was looking at it my guess would be 34K would be exceptionally difficult to gain.
One positive thing about monetising the channel would mean that each video would need to earn it's keep. I personally rarely enjoy the other content and mainly only view harris on cars. If Harris videos prove to be more popular generally then you would expect more of them to be made at the expense of the other poorly viewed content.
Let's assume the subscription channel makes 100 videos per year at an average cost of £5k per vid... That means a total cost base of £500k per year... Let's assume, for now, that total includes all insurance, equipment, salaries, overheads, etc...
At ~£25 a year per unique subscriber, the venture will need to attract and retain ~20k unique subscribers who pay for a full year of content (20k x £25 = £500k)... Factoring in monthly and annual churn, the venture may potentially need up to ~30k monthly and annual subscribers worldwide to break even...
For a benchmark, The Times UK newspaper has taken roughly 4 years to convert roughly ~3% of its wealthy global online readership to the paying firewall (equivalent to ~10% of its offline readership)...
PistonHeads claims ~250k unique active users worldwide... Assuming ~3% of them subscribe, that will give ~8k paying video subscribers by 2018 (rounded for simplicity)...
Another angle: a very quick and rough look at the article-mentioned YouTube channel suggests it could be getting an average of roughly 1.0 million clicks per video per year... Factoring in multiple clickers and mis-clickers, a reasonable guess would indicate 0.5 million worldwide unique users to the channel per year while it is currently completely free-of-charge... Assuming a 3% online-viewer conversion-rate to full payment in 4 years, that would indicate 15k paying subscribers by 2018, giving £375k of revenues in 2018...
In conclusion -- There is definitely a revenue opportunity, but a lid may need to be kept on production costs to make the venture profitable.
(* All numbers above are a wholly independent guesstimate, and they are intended solely for light-hearted discussion purposes only).
Good luck to the PH team for trying this video venture. It will be interesting to see how it pans out in the coming years. The article is a fascinating tiny peek into the UK motoring journalism business.
lamboman100 said:
TheAntics said:
steve_n said:
£24.99 a year is too much based on the numbers outlined. All of a sudden this has the opportunity to turn into a multi-million pound pocket liner when all it would take to support the costs of these shoots is say £1 per person per year.
This is a shame as I really like Chris's work, there's nothing else quite like it as most other journos who try to do the same thing are simply too annoying to listen to!
I disagree....after a very quick look Drive channel produces c.8 videos per month (it varies but looks about right on average) this is across the various program formats, not just Harris videos.This is a shame as I really like Chris's work, there's nothing else quite like it as most other journos who try to do the same thing are simply too annoying to listen to!
Using the only info we have let's use £9k costs as an average cost per program. As described £9k only just covers costs for Chris so it seems fair.
That's £72k per month or £864,000 per year. Let's call the subscription £25 for the sake of argument.
Drive needs 34,560 subscribers to make this work. The current viewing figures do not represent future subscribers numbers as it is currently free content. I'd be interested to know what proportion of viewers they expect to convert to subscribers. If I was looking at it my guess would be 34K would be exceptionally difficult to gain.
One positive thing about monetising the channel would mean that each video would need to earn it's keep. I personally rarely enjoy the other content and mainly only view harris on cars. If Harris videos prove to be more popular generally then you would expect more of them to be made at the expense of the other poorly viewed content.
Let's assume the subscription channel makes 100 videos per year at an average cost of £5k per vid... That means a total cost base of £500k per year... Let's assume, for now, that total includes all insurance, equipment, salaries, overheads, etc...
At ~£25 a year per unique subscriber, the venture will need to attract and retain ~20k unique subscribers who pay for a full year of content (20k x £25 = £500k)... Factoring in monthly and annual churn, the venture may potentially need up to ~30k monthly and annual subscribers worldwide to break even...
For a benchmark, The Times UK newspaper has taken roughly 4 years to convert roughly ~3% of its wealthy global online readership to the paying firewall (equivalent to ~10% of its offline readership)...
PistonHeads claims ~250k unique active users worldwide... Assuming ~3% of them subscribe, that will give ~8k paying video subscribers by 2018 (rounded for simplicity)...
Another angle: a very quick and rough look at the article-mentioned YouTube channel suggests it could be getting an average of roughly 1.0 million clicks per video per year... Factoring in multiple clickers and mis-clickers, a reasonable guess would indicate 0.5 million worldwide unique users to the channel per year while it is currently completely free-of-charge... Assuming a 3% online-viewer conversion-rate to full payment in 4 years, that would indicate 15k paying subscribers by 2018, giving £375k of revenues in 2018...
In conclusion -- There is definitely a revenue opportunity, but a lid may need to be kept on production costs to make the venture profitable.
(* All numbers above are a wholly independent guesstimate, and they are intended solely for light-hearted discussion purposes only).
Good luck to the PH team for trying this video venture. It will be interesting to see how it pans out in the coming years. The article is a fascinating tiny peek into the UK motoring journalism business.
Fair. Play. To. You.
I work in the music business - we have, as an industry, really struggled with the monetisation of the internet. It's been a nightmare for at least ten years. We've all seen our income decimated as our work reaches ever wider audiences. And we are slowly fighting back.
The timing is, IMHO, pretty good. Certainly Driver's Republic was a step too far, too soon. People are waking up to paying for content and my guess is that the people who make it are in an increasingly strong position to justify subscription. It doesn't really matter if people rip and broadcast elsewhere - as long as enough people are willing to pay to get the content made and generate a modest profit. It is the people who are willing to pay that are the key, not those who simply want to nick stuff.
Good luck - I'm in.
I work in the music business - we have, as an industry, really struggled with the monetisation of the internet. It's been a nightmare for at least ten years. We've all seen our income decimated as our work reaches ever wider audiences. And we are slowly fighting back.
The timing is, IMHO, pretty good. Certainly Driver's Republic was a step too far, too soon. People are waking up to paying for content and my guess is that the people who make it are in an increasingly strong position to justify subscription. It doesn't really matter if people rip and broadcast elsewhere - as long as enough people are willing to pay to get the content made and generate a modest profit. It is the people who are willing to pay that are the key, not those who simply want to nick stuff.
Good luck - I'm in.
The maths on the existing setup is not quite correct, since every video produced becomes a source of repeat passive income. Viewing rates drop over time of course, but they will still be getting viewed for many many years and the economics need to be examined over lifetime. Of course the cashflow impact is hard, since like any model that effectively operates as annual income, the cost pain is large and up-front, the revenue arrives passively and over time.
The F40/F50 video has generated £4,800 in less than one year on a £9,000 investment. Thats a 50%+ return on investment. Next year that video might only generate £3k, but it will have cost nothing that year.
Chris - I suggest you model your video viewing rates and project cashflows over several years, you might find out you have just decided to leave a good business model without realising it (I speak as the part-owner of a company that operates on repeat passive revenues). Happy to assist if desired.
The F40/F50 video has generated £4,800 in less than one year on a £9,000 investment. Thats a 50%+ return on investment. Next year that video might only generate £3k, but it will have cost nothing that year.
Chris - I suggest you model your video viewing rates and project cashflows over several years, you might find out you have just decided to leave a good business model without realising it (I speak as the part-owner of a company that operates on repeat passive revenues). Happy to assist if desired.
Edited by Guyr on Wednesday 30th July 14:35
tim milne said:
There's much truth here.
Chris,
The problem lies with the nature of the internet and the car enthusiast audience.
People watch free content on YouTube because it's an easy way to waste a few minutes while they should be working. For a lot of them, their commitment and enthusiasm is very ephemeral. Undoubtedly, there are a smaller number of real enthusiasts, for whom cars is there life-long passion. The problem will be most people won't care enough to pay and many of those that do, won't deem it worthwhile.
Using the newspaper industry as an example, you've tried being the Mail Online (but you'll need ten times the audience), I suspect trying the Times and the New York Times recipe won't work as you'll get too few subscribers and disappear into obscurity. Yes, you could try selling it to a network like Netflix, but I suspect the TV execs will want something more varied than Chris-going-sideways every week.
If I were you, Chris, I'd think about what you can give real enthusiasts beyond a longer edit of the same film.
Think about being the FT, who charge handsomely for content their readers can't live without.
Kudos. One of the most well reasoned and intelligent comments I've read for a long time.Chris,
The problem lies with the nature of the internet and the car enthusiast audience.
People watch free content on YouTube because it's an easy way to waste a few minutes while they should be working. For a lot of them, their commitment and enthusiasm is very ephemeral. Undoubtedly, there are a smaller number of real enthusiasts, for whom cars is there life-long passion. The problem will be most people won't care enough to pay and many of those that do, won't deem it worthwhile.
Using the newspaper industry as an example, you've tried being the Mail Online (but you'll need ten times the audience), I suspect trying the Times and the New York Times recipe won't work as you'll get too few subscribers and disappear into obscurity. Yes, you could try selling it to a network like Netflix, but I suspect the TV execs will want something more varied than Chris-going-sideways every week.
If I were you, Chris, I'd think about what you can give real enthusiasts beyond a longer edit of the same film.
Think about being the FT, who charge handsomely for content their readers can't live without.
A shame that advertising doesn't produce enough cash to keep going.
Yet crap like Pewdie-Pie and Schmee150 coin it in for producing complete bobbins. The former sits there and plays games whilst putting on silly voices, the latter joins hoards of others who supply shaky cam footage of rich Arabs ragging their super-cars round London. Neither of which are as entertaining or as well produced as /Drive.
Yet crap like Pewdie-Pie and Schmee150 coin it in for producing complete bobbins. The former sits there and plays games whilst putting on silly voices, the latter joins hoards of others who supply shaky cam footage of rich Arabs ragging their super-cars round London. Neither of which are as entertaining or as well produced as /Drive.
I don't mind paying £25/year for Drive/ - it's well shot, the content high quality, and it's on a topic that interests me.
What I really hope is that this doesn't become the norm for YouTube. If something successful like Drive/ is making a loss using RevShare then it'll put others off making interesting, high quality content. Either the quality of 'professional' (for want of a better word) videos will fall, or new guys will have to find a lot of seed money to run subscription free until they have a large enough subscriber base that they can charge for their content. Either way, you and I are worse off.
I'd like to see YouTube pressuring advertisers to understand that their ads are an irritation at the beginning of videos and instead of being lazy and dragging the telly adverts over unchanged, making short, sharp 10/15 second ads that you don't need to skip. Their message gets across, the video's owner gets the revenue and the viewer doesn't lose 90 seconds of their lives watching an advert for Fairy Non-Bio.
TL;DR - Drive/ is EASILY worth the subscription, but I hope YouTube makes sure I don't have to pay for any more of my favourite shows.
What I really hope is that this doesn't become the norm for YouTube. If something successful like Drive/ is making a loss using RevShare then it'll put others off making interesting, high quality content. Either the quality of 'professional' (for want of a better word) videos will fall, or new guys will have to find a lot of seed money to run subscription free until they have a large enough subscriber base that they can charge for their content. Either way, you and I are worse off.
I'd like to see YouTube pressuring advertisers to understand that their ads are an irritation at the beginning of videos and instead of being lazy and dragging the telly adverts over unchanged, making short, sharp 10/15 second ads that you don't need to skip. Their message gets across, the video's owner gets the revenue and the viewer doesn't lose 90 seconds of their lives watching an advert for Fairy Non-Bio.
TL;DR - Drive/ is EASILY worth the subscription, but I hope YouTube makes sure I don't have to pay for any more of my favourite shows.
It was always going to be this way. £25 is f
k all but when I really think what Im subscribing for I am beginning to wonder if its worth it. I enjoy CH vids but thats it, Leo's stuff can sometimes be interesting but his videos are few and far between and Mike Spinelli is a disgrace. Ill probably end up subbing because £2.50 for 4 videos of Chris Drifting on a Wednesday or Thursday morning is worth it I guess.
Wonder how long itll be before it gets pirated by people.....
k all but when I really think what Im subscribing for I am beginning to wonder if its worth it. I enjoy CH vids but thats it, Leo's stuff can sometimes be interesting but his videos are few and far between and Mike Spinelli is a disgrace. Ill probably end up subbing because £2.50 for 4 videos of Chris Drifting on a Wednesday or Thursday morning is worth it I guess. Wonder how long itll be before it gets pirated by people.....
Hi Chris
I subscribe to car magazines that I could read much of on the web, for free. I subscribe to newspapers that I could largely read for free on their websites. I pay to rent movies and TV programmes from sky or iTunes. I'd rather your drive channel was self sustaining and pay for the content than not have it. You could offer different approaches. Try charging per view, or for a subscription. If we had all paid £1 to watch the F12 video you'd be doing quite nicely out of it, even after you've paid for the tyres! And there's nothing wrong with that. You can count on my support
I subscribe to car magazines that I could read much of on the web, for free. I subscribe to newspapers that I could largely read for free on their websites. I pay to rent movies and TV programmes from sky or iTunes. I'd rather your drive channel was self sustaining and pay for the content than not have it. You could offer different approaches. Try charging per view, or for a subscription. If we had all paid £1 to watch the F12 video you'd be doing quite nicely out of it, even after you've paid for the tyres! And there's nothing wrong with that. You can count on my support
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff