MANILA, Philippines – YouTube has announced that it will maintain funding for 30%-40% of its content partners, cutting funding from a substantial number of its partnered shows.

According to a report from Ad Age, Google’s streaming video service will notify the partners who will be getting a second funding infusion in the next few weeks. 

Jamie Byrne, YouTube’s Global Head of Content, says the company “looked at viewership they’ve been able to achieve, the cost of the content and from that we are able to determine the channels that are delivering the best return on our invesmtnent (sic).”

CNET writes that most of the content channel partners for YouTube — from celebrities to content-makers from various fields — “were given between US$1-M and US$5-M to create a couple hours of programming a week. Once that money was recouped through ad dollars, Google and the content creators would split advertising revenues.”

Google learned a lot from the experiment, however, seeing that the most fruitful endeavors came from the channels that engaged in community-building as well as creating content.

Notes Courtney Holt, the COO of Maker Studios: “You need to have a commitment to the platform, to understand how to build your audience.” – Rappler.com