YouTube to launch 100 original new channels

YouTube has announced plans to roll out 100 new channels featuring original content from the likes of Jay-Z, WWE and The Onion, as the website looks to the future of online broadcasting.

The Google-owned YouTube intends to launch the channels over the coming months, bringing 25 hours of original programming to the video-sharing site each week.

Among the dozens of partners are the producers of hit TV shows such as The Office and CSI, as well as various news, music and sport providers, and content from YouTube's existing partners.

Various celebrities are involved, such as Madonna, Jay-Z and Ashton Kutcher, while there will also be new channels from media firms The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, VICE Media and satirical newspaper The Onion.

Skateboarder Tony Hawk will launch the Ride channel, comic book legend Stan Lee will bring the World of Heroes and there will be an urban comedy channel from basketball star Shaquille O'Neal.

A sneak peak of the new channels is available here.

The content push follows YouTube's pledge to invest $100m in original content, as part of plans to expand from a user-generated video-sharing portal to an online broadcasting network.

Robert Kyncl, the global head of content partnerships at YouTube, claimed that "wonderful things" can happen when "cool technology meets great entertainment".

"Cable television expanded our viewing possibilities from just a handful of channels to hundreds, and brought us some of the most defining media experiences of the last few decades - think MTV, ESPN and CNN," he wrote in a blog posting.

"Today, the web is bringing us entertainment from an even wider range of talented producers, and many of the defining channels of the next generation are being born, and watched, on YouTube."

Kyncl said that YouTube's goal was to bring "an even broader range of entertainment" to its users, while also giving advertisers a "new way" to engage with global consumers.

"The first of these new original channels will appear on YouTube starting next month and will continue over the next year," he added.

"They'll be available to you on any internet-connected device, anywhere in the world, with all the interactivity and social features of YouTube built right in."

YouTube already offers the catch-up TV services of various UK broadcasters, including Channel 4 and Channel 5, and the site recently launched a live streaming service.