There’s still a big gap between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. But that doesn’t mean the two towns can’t do business together. And they both want to do more.
Hollywood, Meet Silicon Valley: YouTube and UTA Onstage at Code/Media
Silicon Valley and Hollywood are starting to close the gap and make money together.
Asa Mathat
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.
That’s the main takeaway from the Code/Media chat we hosted this month with Robert Kyncl, who heads up content at YouTube, and Jeremy Zimmer, the head of United Talent Agency.
Traditional movie and TV talent aren’t exactly sure what to do with YouTube, but in some ways that doesn’t matter, because the site has developed its own galaxy of stars — at least as far as teens and pre-teens are concerned. Repping those folks, and creating opportunities for them on and outside of YouTube, is a growing business for UTA and its competitors.
Meanwhile YouTube is making another push to create more distinctive, more ambitious programming, in part because it wants more ad dollars and in part because it now has real competition from the likes of Facebook. That’s good for Zimmer and his agents, too.
You can see the two mens’ entire conversation with my colleague Dawn Chmielewski here:
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
