YouTube pins its hopes on Tamil content as creators go into overdrive

Arumugam’s specialty is cooking ‘out of this world’ non-vegetarian dishes – think KFC-styled fried chicken and Buffalo Wings amidst the tranquillity of the foothills of the Western Ghats. Twice a week, he distributes his food among the poor and the hungry in and around his village.

Set up by Arumugam’s son Gopinath, the two-year-old YouTube channel has 2.2 mn dedicated subscribers and 196 videos at last count and growing. Speaking at the second Tamil Day function organised by the video sharing portal in Chennai, on Monday, Gopinath, a former assistant director, who was accompanied by his father says, “We used to live in a rented house paying Rs 1,500 every month. Thanks to our channel, we now have a 1,500 sq feet house of our own, a car and I can afford flight tickets for my father, when we travel for such events.”

The channel’s runaway success is nothing short of a miracle for the family that was finding it hard to make ends meet. He adds that before his channel started gaining subscribers, Gopinath’s family would have to wait until the weekends to prepare a meat-based delicacy. Of course, things have now changed for the better, with the family at ease to consume meat anytime they want. An article in the New Yorker, garnered Arumugam international buzz, and spurred a greater interest in his dishes that range from Chicken Elaneer (tender coconut) to Tomato Omelettes, Turkey Biryani and Chicken Pizza. Arumugam is looking forward to hit the magical 3 mn subscriber mark sometime early next year.

YouTube said the creators of Tamil language content are among the top channels on the online video community, in the non-Hindi content space.

Satya Raghavan, Director, Content Partnerships, YouTube in India, said, “Over 245 mn unique users are coming to YouTube in India every month. In 2014, we had 16 YouTube channels with more than 1 mn subscribers in India and today that number is over 300. We’re adding two more channels to the list almost every single week. A lot of this growth is coming from local native Indian languages. Our Tamil creators and channels are in fact growing at a staggering rate across verticals such as learning, food, tech, comedy and music.”

Raghavan who was here in the city to host YouTube’s second ‘Tamil Day’ added, “Every day 2, 500 creators cross the 1,000 subscribers mark. In TN, there are 570 channels with more than 1 lakh subscribers and 44 channels with over 1 mn subscribers. Among Hindi channels and non-Hindi channels, 70 per cent of the top channels are all Tamil and it’s the second biggest language at this point. We are now looking at increased partner/creator connects and higher monetisation.”

Sharing insights from YouTube Rewind 2018, the annual look back at the year, it highlighted trending moments from the city – from falling in love with village food recipes from Village Food Factory, to the trailer of Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar starrer 2.0 being the second most trending movie trailer of the year.