Vin Di Bona’s FishBowl Launches Petsami YouTube Channel

It’s time to get cuddly.

And it’s about time that somebody formally recognized the brilliant combination of pets and the internet. Who better than America’s Funniest Home Videos creator Vin Di Bona, who with partner Bruce Gersh at FishBowl Worldwide Media launched the Petsami channel on YouTube today?

Petsami is a natural evolution out of CuteWinFail, a clip-driven program which often featured animals among its top vids. “Petsami allows us to leverage our incredible library of curated user generated content to bring a new, fun and comic twist to current animal programming,” said Gersh, President and CEO of FishBowl. “The YouTube channel expands beyond a viewing channel to a specific destination that entertains, engages and encourages conversations with YouTube audiences and beyond.”

“The expansion of YouTube and Google’s social platforms allows users both video and social experience around content, making it the perfect home for Petsami,” David Beebe, Vice President and General Manager of FishBowl’s Digital Studio, said.

The channel boasts shows featuring Dancing with the Stars‘ Carrie Ann Inaba, and  YouTube phenomenon Clark G, the talking dog that garnered nearly 90 million views for the Ultimate Dog Tease video on YouTube.

Petsami launches today with six shows, including:

• CuteWinTail – Similar to the format of FishBowl’s incredibly successful CuteWInFail, each episode of CuteWinTail presents three clips and lets audiences decide which is the “most epic” as it applies to the world of pet and animals. Each week, an episode ends with “Pet of the Week
• Leash Line – Leash Line is a weekly news magazine show, profiling true stories of amazing animals from around the world. It’s host, Monkey, is the proud pet of Emmy Award Winning Reporter Lu Parker, who also serves as executive producer.
• One Minute Meerkat – This weekly show examines what Meerkats are really saying, translating their thoughts through extremely complex technology. It turns out Meerkats are very similar to humans and each week is just as relatable as the next
• Ask a Tiger – A weekly support show hosted by Sabin the Nepalese tiger, who offers domestic pets advice based on his expertise from the wild. Sabin also provides comedic user-generated clips to serve as examples of animal-human interaction
• KlipKat – From her Venice apartment, internet junkie KlipKat shares her take on favorite cat clips and invites users to submit LOL speak captions for them. The highest rated user captions are featured in the next episode.
• How2BCute – Hoshi the Hamster, Ivanna Iguana and Gus the Guppy are the G.H.I. (think Statler and Waldorf). They are too cool for school and spend their time each day, interacting with users and influencers with snarky, yet entertaining comments.

In October FishBowl launched Ultimate Proposal on Yahoo!, which started off with a bang at 1.75MM views in the first week.