Can Prince William’s new YouTube partnership compete with Netflix? LOL.

This week, Prince William took a break from his vacation (seriously) to dutifully retweet an announcement regarding the Earthshot Prize. The announcement? The Earthshot Prize “partnering” with YouTube. At first I thought this was about the broadcast rights to televise the Earthshot Prize ceremony (which airs on the BBC in the UK), but it’s something else (I’m sorry about the caps-lock, but this is cut-and-pasted from Earthshot):

AS PART OF A NEW OFFICIAL PARTNERSHIP, YOUTUBE WILL WORK WITH THE EARTHSHOT PRIZE TO PRODUCE CONTENT WHICH INSPIRES USERS TO DRIVE ACTION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE WITH STORIES OF URGENT OPTIMISM FROM AROUND THE WORLD

YouTube will support the growth of The Earthshot Prize’s YouTube channel, building an engaged sustainability community and helping the Prize reach younger and more international audiences who we know care passionately about this issue.

From mini-documentaries and Q&A’s to YouTube Shorts and creator collaborations, the content will help audiences better understand sustainability in easily digestible formats. This includes amplifying existing series like the recently published ‘Most searched for climate questions’ and ‘Relax with the Earthshot Prize’.

This exciting new partnership will be a critical support to The Earthshot Prize as it builds towards its third annual Awards Ceremony, to be hosted this November in Singapore for the first time.

[From Earthshot]

This is actually a good idea and it seems like a very smart partnership, and a way for Earthshot to, you know, actually center the prize nominees and highlight the actual work they’re doing. As opposed to centering William and his desire to hang out with celebrities. What’s fascinating about this is that while it’s a good partnership for Earthshot and for the actual innovators and environmentalists, it’s not in any way comparable to what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are doing. And yet… that’s exactly where multiple commentators went. From Sky News:

Prince William has officially teamed up with tech giant YouTube on a content partnership set to rival the Sussexes’ deals with Netflix and Spotify.

However, unlike Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who signed multiple commercial deals for personal financial gain, William’s deal will solely benefit his environmental charity The Earthshot Prize.

[From Sky News]

They’re trying so hard! “This deal is as big as the Sussexes’ Netflix deal!” No, it’s not. “Well, this deal is better because William doesn’t profit from it!” Whatever “profits” coming out of Earthshot and YouTube’s partnership will be negligible, trust me.

That whackjob Daniela Elser also wrote a screed about this YouTube partnership where she immediately went to “compare-and-contrast William and Harry.” Which is just sad. As I said, this partnership is a good idea and it will be interesting to see what comes out of it, and it really deserved to be a stand-alone announcement not related to the Montecito royal court whatsoever. Once again, William’s media allies give away the game: William is still obsessed with copying and outdoing whatever his younger brother does. William’s YouTube partnership will rival the Sussexes’ Netflix deal, except it won’t be profitable and it’s nothing like a Netflix contract! It actually reminds me of when Kate and William started their own YouTube channel and everyone fell over themselves to praise them as brilliant content creators and then… they barely update it with new videos.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.