There was a lot of news and special interest but throwing Educational programming into the mix is not factually correct.
I have two list, one from 2011 and one recent. Both show an emphasis on Entertainment and Extracurricular programming.
Recent: http://www.youtube.com/yt/advertise/original-channels.html
From 2011: http://www.tubefilter.com/2011/10/28/youtube-original-channe...
Not too many pure educational programming plays. Certainly not the majority.
->Non-talent costs really can be dramatically reduced in a non-union world...
Producing content is like anything else you have to make, a lot of times you get what you pay. I've worked with a lot of new workers, the good ones rise to professional level pretty fast and they won't work for equity/portfolio for too long. I think Youtube has gone as far as it can go with cheap content, which is pretty good. Now they are experimenting.