Dive Brief:
- Two years after stepping down as chief executive officer of Hulu, Jason Kilar has developed a video platform that will center on popular content creators of YouTube.
- Launching early 2015, Vessel will be an ad-supported, subscription-service where users will pay $2.99 a month to watch content from their favorite YouTube stars days before the videos go on YouTube.
- In an interview with AdAge, Kilar acknowledged that YouTube has allowed for creators to cultivate a following and even become famous, "but, so far, they haven't yet been able to build a great business on the basis of video distribution digitally alone."
Dive Insight:
Vessel is promising revenue in one of two ways: Creators can paywall their content and receive a cut of both the ad and subscription revenue, or they can offer their videos for free on Vessel's free service and only receive ad revenue money.
Vessel already has some big names signed on. YouTube stars—like Shane Dawson and Rhett & Link—as well as actual celebrity Alec Baldwin, who will be premiering his show "Alec Baldwin's Love Ride" have reached agreements with Vessel.
