• Adweek, Monday, May 14, 2012 11:57 AM

Adweek talks to one unnamed ad buyer who questions YouTube’s new offering in the wake of its “brandcast” presentation in New York a few weeks ago. For starters, YouTube is asking for $5 million for yearlong, all-inclusive sponsorships of the new YouTube partner channels (of which there will be more than 50), while pre-roll ads appearing before video content on these channels will be sold at a $20 CPM.

However, as the unnamed buyer notes, YouTube will be selling guaranteed audiences using proprietary numbers from parent company Google, rather than from a third party like a comScore or Nielsen. Even though buyers have issues with both comScore and Nielsen, they are even less enthusiastic about buying audience guarantees on YouTube that are measured by its parent company, the buyer says.

Moreover, “It’s too early to tell the quality of that offering.” Google may have pledged to put $200 million into the marketing of these new channels, but these promotions are limited to the Google network. “And how do they determine certain programming to be ‘winners’ or ‘hits’?” the buyer asked. “That is still not clear as well.”

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