Vimeo continues to invest in original programming. When will YouTube learn?
Vimeo is doing what YouTube should have done years ago: it is finding talent on its own platform and investing in them.
Vimeo first did this when it optioned High Maintenance, which first premiered on Vimeo in 2012. The series garnered critical acclaim, and its popularity prompted the video platform to invest in producing six additional episodes of it. It is now available for purchase via Vimeo on Demand.
The new slate of original programming, announced today, includes The Outs (Adam Goldman and Sasha Winters), Darby Fever (a short film from Saturday Night Live member Aidy Bryant), and Bianca Del Rio’s Rolodex of Hate Comedy Special: Live from Austin (Vimeo’s first original stand-up special).
“Since its founding, Vimeo has been dedicated to providing creators a high quality, clutter free, supportive environment to control the way their work is viewed,” Greg Clayman, General Manager, Audience Networks, Vimeo, told Found Remote. “We believe online video monetization is entering a second ‘premium, paid’ phase following the initial wave of ad-supported monetization. As seen offline with the rise of premium pay television, online video will not have to rely solely on pre-roll advertising to earn money. Advertising introduces creative limitations for creators, as well as scale requirements that most creators cannot meet, and Vimeo is building the open global platform for paid video distribution, with the most creator-friendly revenue share in the industry.”
When choosing which projects to move forward with, “we looked to the creators rising up on our site and have someone solely focused on development on the team,” Clayman said. The Outs follows in the path of High Maintenance, while Bianco Del Rio caught his team’s attention when her Birthday Roast became one of the most successful organic titles of the summer on Vimeo Demand. Darby Forever’s director Oz Rodriguez is a long-time Vimeo creator, and SNL’s Aidy Bryant is taking it up as a passion project.