YouTube to Cut Funding for Most Original Premium Channels

It's been nearly a year since YouTube announced its plan to invest $100 million to launch 100 premium channels with the likes of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and The Wall Street Journal, and now many of those contracts are up for renewal. But the majority of those original channels will not receive additional funds from the Google-owned video site.

YouTube will begin sending out new contracts this week, but only between 30% and 40% of channel owners should expect to receive them, we were told.

Jamie Byrne, YouTubes director of content strategy, told AllThingsD that engagement -- specifically, watch time -- and cost efficiency were the two biggest factors in determining who will b…
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