After the fallout from his recent controversy left Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg with neither a partner network nor a programming deal with YouTube, the top YouTube star decided to take his talents to Twitch. There, on a channel called Netglow, he launched the first episode of his weekly web series Best Club on April 9th. Over the course of the broadcast, it brought in 62,000 views, which marks a healthy start for PewDiePie’s efforts on Twitch.
The inaugural Best Club episode was hosted by Kjellberg and Brad Smith of the World of the Orange YouTube channel. Their first stream together began with a chatty, informal segment that lasted for about two hours and included lots of props.
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Best Club‘s premiere wasn’t quite a Twitch record-breaker, but it was a nice start on Twitch for Kjellberg, who plans to return to the streaming platform each Sunday. On Twitter, the controversial star thanked his fans for tuning in:
Amazing support for the first ep of best club. You guys are pretty ok how bout that
— pewdiepie (@pewdiepie) April 9, 2017
Broadcasts of Best Club don’t seem like they’ll be a vital income source for Kjellberg; instead, an Ars Technica article notes that Netglow’s current schedule won’t even be frequent enough to quality the channel as a Twitch Partner. Making money, however, doesn’t appear to be Kjellberg’s main goal for his new hub. Instead, he seems to be looking to replicate the feel of his Revelmode network, which he launched in January 2016 alongside his former partner network Maker Studios. That venture got shut down after Kjellberg parted ways with Maker, and he said that consequence was “probably the worst thing with this whole thing going down.”
The best way Kjellberg used Revelmode was as a mechanism for raising money for charity; last year, a holiday broadcast raised more than $1.3 million in donations. If Netglow is going to be the new Revelmode, it may give Kjellberg a channel where can hang out with his friends and do some good at the same time. For that, he’ll need an audience — which he apparently will not lack. To see how further episodes of Best Club turn out, tune into Netglow each Sunday at 11 AM EST.
