YouTube Stars Headed To Dutch TV, Keeping Their Online Video Rights

Dutch broadcasting company VPRO has partnered with local production studio, NewBeTV, to create The Donuts. The program is a sketch series highlighting the antics of YouTubers from around the globe set to air on Dutch TV and (in a very creator-friendly act from the companies involved) the channels of the featured YouTube stars.

The first Dutch episode will debut Friday, August 22, in a primetime slot on VPRO. At the same time, and English-dubbed iteration of the program will be released on on YouTube. NewBeTV believes the tandem distribution approach could net the program upwards of three million viewers.

The Donuts will be hosted by Lize Korpershoek and takes place in a studio setting where Korpershoek will introduce clips of videos from the creators based on highly interesting (and slightly scandalous) themes. YouTubers from the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, the United States, Venezuela, Germany, and England will create shorts inspired by premises like “my first drug experience” or “things my parents-in-law shouldn’t know about me”).

Well-known online video names like Dutch online animators KUD, New Zealand comedian Matt Mulholland, Japanese absurdists SQUASHfilms, and American prank creators from the channel Whatever are all on board the project, along with their combined 450 million views.

According to C21Media, VPRO and NewbeTV are making sure these creators are given the rights they deserve. “The Donuts will be a new TV sketch show that unites popular YouTubers worldwide without undermining their authority and personal creativity,” NewBeTV director Jeroen Koopman said. “Creators keep the online rights of the video and are free to exploit it on their own channel.”

In an interview with StreamDaily.tv, Koopman also makes it clear that the content made especially for The Donuts is meant to be complementary to a creator’s regularly scheduled programming. The goals are not to takeover a creator’s channel, but to have an “international release of the show, cut into 10 individual sketches” as well as expose all of The Donuts‘ participants to new audiences around the world.