Youtube's premium channels...not enough views?

Yes, this is another post about Youtube's premium channels. I'm sorry for going back to the well on this one, but the experiment (and yes, this is an experiment at this point) doesn't seem to be making too much headway with audiences. According to Deadline.com's lastest weekly channel rankings, only 14 of the Youtube premium channels received 1 million views or more this past week. I guess you could call that the good news. The bad news is that almost half of the premium channels clocked in under 100K views for the week. From what I've pieced together from various sources, this is well short of the number of views required on average to pay back Youtube's advances on these various deals.

Maybe it was just a bad week for these "professional" channels, or maybe it just takes a lot longer to build up a true 'channel' with steady viewership (which, duh!!).  Even still, I think these low numbers say a lot Youtube in general and their ability to drive their own premium content business model. I don't think it will ever be a place where they can curate their own content or cultivate demand.

Instead they might just want to continue to foster burgeoning talent like they do with their "Next" series as described in this great NY Times article. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE that Youtube is spending money on premium content. I just they need to rethink the model and continue to tinker with their approach to premium content.