Here's what the show's creators have to say about going with YouTube:
Heald: We knew this was a show that we needed to do without commercials. So we pitched all of the streaming platforms and premium cable networks — and I have to say that YouTube was the most passionate about our pitch, and it was also the very first pitch. Susanne stopped us just short of finishing the presentation and said, “We get it, this is going to be huge, we want you to take everything you just said in this room and go do it.” It was a straight-to-series offer — the kind of dream pitch that just doesn’t happen often.
I think YouTube knew they needed to be aggressive at that moment. This was a project that checked a lot of boxes for them that they knew could be marketed in such a way that it reached a wide audience. And we were excited about taking that journey with them — being the flag in the ground for their platform, so to speak.
Hurwitz: There was an enthusiastic reaction all over town. Our initial target was Netflix — and there was passion there as well, which made the decision tough. But it was really that next level of commitment from YouTube, because we hadn’t written any scripts. Whoever we were pitching had to take us at our word that we had a handle on exactly what the tone would be. Susanne, from moment one, she just got it.
In that room she basically said, “We want this show to be our House Of Cards — to be that series that shows the world what we’re capable of as a platform.” And there was something very exciting for us about being the first big show that gets attention for a platform rather than being one of the many new series that pops up every week.
Schlossberg: It was a commitment on every level — creatively, financially, and in terms of the structure of the deal. At the end of the day, YouTube had the best financial package guaranteed in terms of the budget of each episode.
https://www.tubefilter.com/2018/06/14/cobra-kai-youtube-house-of-cards/
reply
share