Hearst's Brand New, Six-Year-Old Video Channel

The company promotes what is essentially an enhanced relaunch as a new product.

By T.J. Raphael 05/09/2012 -04:09 PM

As more and more people turn to the Internet to get television and video entertainment, so is Hearst Magazines—the company has relaunched its Car and Driver YouTube channel with a host of new programming. Although from the announcement, you’d think the channel is brand new.

Car and Driver has had a YouTube channel since 2006, then a Hachette title, which has gotten over 70,000 subscribers and close to 40 million video views to date. In an effort to capitalize on this success, Hearst announced the launch of its Car and Driver YouTube channel last Tuesday.

If you’re thinking, “Wait, what?” you’re not alone. What is being billed as a new launch is actually the introduction of six new 8-to-10-minute daily video shows.

“In its pre-launch phase, the Car and Driver Channel racked up more than 70,000 subscribers,” a news release from the company says. Six years is a long pre-launch phase.

“Car and Driver launched with a significant existing subscriber base (more than 70,000 subscribers and 39 million video views), and the base has responded very positively to our previews (e.g., we gained 7,000 additional subscriptions in the last two weeks with a few promotions),” explains a spokesperson for the company. “We expect this community to grow as the prior base grew without any focused attention to the channel. The original Car and Driver series launched in 2006, driven largely by their video test-drives.”

With the additional channel content, views and subscriptions will likely increase substantially. But instead of trying to position the introduction of this new content as a brand new launch, the group would have been better off to call this what it is—a relaunch. It may be a cliché, but, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.