4 ms·

I just don't see smaller magazine publishers sustaining the production of video. It's extremely high cost relative to other content and they don't have the traf

I just don't see smaller magazine publishers sustaining the production of video. It's extremely high cost relative to other content and they don't have the traffic or niche audience required to gather the ad revenue to support it.

richsherwood 8y ago
It’s getting cheaper and cheaper to produce videos these days though. We’re kind of in the place that graphic design was in 10 years ago. As the equipment gets better, software more powerful, and generations of younger folks with substantial knowledge in the subject, the costs are going to go way down.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  I’d say we’re at the end of the cost reduction curve. Capital requirements for video production have been minimal for a while. Costs are overwhelmingly people. People don’t get cheaper.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    With the number of totally independent content producers on YouTube with extremely high production quality (often indistinguishable from professional TV shows), I honestly don't think cost/people is a big factor anymore, at all.
    - katzgrau 8y ago
      But a publisher is paying people to produce the content - so I'm saying after the planning, shooting and producing, the cost at probably a few thousand for a publisher. Supporting that with video ad Rev is really, really hard if you're like the typical online magazine that doesn't have a look at T of scale.
      - mistermann 8y ago
        > after the planning, shooting and producing, the cost at probably a few thousand for a publisher. There are all sorts of YouTube content creators who do everything for their channel, had no noteworthy background in any of it, and turn out several videos a week with broadcast TV levels of quality, in addition to holding down full time regular jobs. You could spend several thousand per episode, but you no longer have* to. I agree though, covering these now minimal costs with ad revenue is something else entirely.
        toasterlovin 8y ago
        > You could spend several thousand per episode, but you no longer have* to. You don’t have to if you know how to do the work. It’s like making apps. It’s cheap to make an app and get it on the App Store if you’re an app developer. But if you need to hire somebody, suddenly you’re looking at multiple tens of thousands of dollars, at a bare minimum. The fact that there are all sorts of content creators doing video work for themselves doesn’t mean that doing video work is somehow cheap. They’re just working for themselves on spec.
        mistermann 8y ago
        This doesn't make logical sense to me....a lot of these skilled people run channels with next to no income, I would think only would many of them gladly take on some side work for multiple tens of thousands of dollars, at a bare minimum, but would fight over it, bidding it down to way less than that. To me this seems like basic supply and demand in action, I'm curious which aspects of this scenario we disagree on to come to such a wide disagreement?
- mark_l_watson 8y ago
  I agree with you. In addition to many more people saavy at generating and editing content, modern cell phones with motion stabilization and better editing tools make anyone a reporter/cinematographer if they are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to capture something interesting or otherwise news worthy.
soared 8y ago
I would argue the opposite.. there are millions of YouTube channels that have no budget at all. Some of my favorite channels have very small budgets.
- katzgrau 8y ago
  Right. But a magazine has to pay salaries - I'd wonder how many of your favorite YouTube channel creators are completely supported by their craft.
rdl 8y ago
Video in an infographic/voiceover form seems relatively affordable to produce.
- katzgrau 8y ago
  The technology is affordable, it's the hired staff that is expensive - magazines have to support time spent with ad revenue and the numbers don't work out well
  - rdl 8y ago
    If you lower the bar and just show infographics (which you already produce for print) and possibly lightly animate them and some reading of the articles, video cost can be in the hundreds of dollars all-in per video. I suspect a toolchain could be created to essentially automate the process of making these videos, using stock photos/clips, an animation library, etc.

richsherwood 8y ago

It’s getting cheaper and cheaper to produce videos these days though. We’re kind of in the place that graphic design was in 10 years ago. As the equipment gets better, software more powerful, and generations of younger folks with substantial knowledge in the subject, the costs are going to go way down.

toasterlovin 8y ago
I’d say we’re at the end of the cost reduction curve. Capital requirements for video production have been minimal for a while. Costs are overwhelmingly people. People don’t get cheaper.
- mistermann 8y ago
  With the number of totally independent content producers on YouTube with extremely high production quality (often indistinguishable from professional TV shows), I honestly don't think cost/people is a big factor anymore, at all.
  - katzgrau 8y ago
    But a publisher is paying people to produce the content - so I'm saying after the planning, shooting and producing, the cost at probably a few thousand for a publisher. Supporting that with video ad Rev is really, really hard if you're like the typical online magazine that doesn't have a look at T of scale.
    - mistermann 8y ago
      > after the planning, shooting and producing, the cost at probably a few thousand for a publisher. There are all sorts of YouTube content creators who do everything for their channel, had no noteworthy background in any of it, and turn out several videos a week with broadcast TV levels of quality, in addition to holding down full time regular jobs. You could spend several thousand per episode, but you no longer have* to. I agree though, covering these now minimal costs with ad revenue is something else entirely.
      - toasterlovin 8y ago
        > You could spend several thousand per episode, but you no longer have* to. You don’t have to if you know how to do the work. It’s like making apps. It’s cheap to make an app and get it on the App Store if you’re an app developer. But if you need to hire somebody, suddenly you’re looking at multiple tens of thousands of dollars, at a bare minimum. The fact that there are all sorts of content creators doing video work for themselves doesn’t mean that doing video work is somehow cheap. They’re just working for themselves on spec.
        mistermann 8y ago
        This doesn't make logical sense to me....a lot of these skilled people run channels with next to no income, I would think only would many of them gladly take on some side work for multiple tens of thousands of dollars, at a bare minimum, but would fight over it, bidding it down to way less than that. To me this seems like basic supply and demand in action, I'm curious which aspects of this scenario we disagree on to come to such a wide disagreement?
mark_l_watson 8y ago
I agree with you. In addition to many more people saavy at generating and editing content, modern cell phones with motion stabilization and better editing tools make anyone a reporter/cinematographer if they are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to capture something interesting or otherwise news worthy.

soared 8y ago

I would argue the opposite.. there are millions of YouTube channels that have no budget at all. Some of my favorite channels have very small budgets.

katzgrau 8y ago
Right. But a magazine has to pay salaries - I'd wonder how many of your favorite YouTube channel creators are completely supported by their craft.

rdl 8y ago

Video in an infographic/voiceover form seems relatively affordable to produce.

katzgrau 8y ago
The technology is affordable, it's the hired staff that is expensive - magazines have to support time spent with ad revenue and the numbers don't work out well
- rdl 8y ago
  If you lower the bar and just show infographics (which you already produce for print) and possibly lightly animate them and some reading of the articles, video cost can be in the hundreds of dollars all-in per video. I suspect a toolchain could be created to essentially automate the process of making these videos, using stock photos/clips, an animation library, etc.