Kate Bulkley, Media Analyst.

Virgin Media targets young audience with YouTube channel

By Kate Bulkley

Broadcast News

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For Broadcast June 06, 2013

Virgin Media will launch a YouTube channel later this month to target younger audiences and potential subscribers.

The yet-to-be named channel will be produced by Bigballs Films and will include two original shows at launch: a review show called Jacked In and a gaming series called Pixel Life.

These will be presented by YouTube-known ‘stars’ who already have big followings online and in social media.

Other videos will include “mashups” of entertainment content airing on Virgin Media pay channels, subject to rights issues.

Virgin Media’s advertising and sponsorship division is financing the channel.

Director Richard Larcombe said the idea was to be “iterative” and engage with the YouTube audience in an entertaining way that also showcases Virgin Media’s brand strengths around entertainment and innovation, including VM’s high-speed broadband. “You can’t ignore what’s happening on YouTube.

There is a massive connected audience that we need to be talking to about entertainment and YouTube offers a fantastic opportunity to do that in a connected space,” he said. “We are an entertainment brand so we need to entertain across multiplatforms.”

The plan is not to make the channel a “hard sell” to sign up to Virgin Media services, and to focus instead on word of mouth.

“This is a group of people that are going to be the lifeblood of our brand in the next 10 to 15 years and YouTube allows a fantastic opportunity to have a conversation with them,” said Larcombe.

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