YouTube Millionaires: For DreamWorksTV, Arriving Online Was “An Imperative”

Welcome to YouTube Millionaires, where we profile channels that have recently crossed the one million subscriber mark. There are channels crossing this threshold every week, and each has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments of YouTube Millionaires here.

Last year, DreamWorks Animation launched DreamWorksTV, a new digital destination aimed at young viewers. It is safe to say the channel has been a success. A little more than a year into its run, it already has surpassed one million subscribers, and perhaps more importantly, it has outpaced the official YouTube hubs of most other prominent kids’ content producers, including Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, and Cartoon Network. How has DreamWorksTV accomplished its strong growth? We got some answers from its head executive, Birk Rawlings.

Tubefilter: How does it feel to have 1 million subscribers? What do you want to say to your fans?

DreamWorksTV: Pretty darn good. And Thanks!

TF: Why does DreamWorksTV feel having a digital presence is important, especially as it pertains to reaching your target audience?

DW: Digital/Mobile platforms are where our audience spends most of their viewing time, so building a digital native presence wasn’t really a choice as much as an imperative.

TF: How has DreamWorksTV’s YouTube channel supplemented its other digital, TV, and film efforts?

DW: Our primary mission is to create fun, original content for our target audience and we bring that spirit to how we support our parent company’s film & TV properties. While we still support traditional approaches such as clips and trailers we also look at each property and come up with custom content that is built from the ground up with our specific platforms and audience in mind. My favorite example is a short series of DIY videos we called Dragon Style that was produced to support the DWA/Netflix series Dragons: Race To The Edge and features YouTubers demonstrating how fans can bring How To Train Your Dragon fashion and style home with them.

TF: How has creating digital-first original content, instead of simply re-purposing DreamWorks properties, helped DreamWorksTV grow its channel?

DW: To put it simply, original digital-first content has been the difference between linear growth seen on most media company’s YouTube channels and the exponential growth that we’ve seen since launching DreamWorksTV on YouTube. Shows that are custom built for the platform and for our target audience like Life Hacks for Kids and Songs That Stick drive more subscribers and views than any of the myriad of awesome traditional media properties from DreamWorks Animation.

TF: Not all of the content on DreamWorksTV’s channel is from the brand’s own animators. How do you choose which creators to work with and who should have content on your channel?

DW: We’re open to working with talented creators of all stripes. We’ve seen success with talent from YouTube natives to experienced TV & Feature writers, directors & artists. Contributions have come from Los Angeles, California to Maroubra, New South Wales and all sorts of cool locales in between. If we think our audience will like it, we’ll say yes to just about anything that can be produced on digital-friendly budgets.

TF: What kind of content has worked well on the DreamWorksTV channel (i.e. trailers, original series, reviews, etc.)? What do you think wasn’t as great a success?

DW: We’ve seen a lot of success with YouTube native formats like crafting in I <3 DIY, unboxing in UnBox It! and gameplay in League of Let’s Play. Some of our more traditional narrative content has struggled to make it through the YT algorithm, but that challenge isn’t going to stop us from producing character-driven content.

TF: What’s next for your channel? Anything fun?

DW: Always. We publish new, original content every single day.

On Deck (channels that will soon reach one million subscribers): YAPYAP, Telemundo, Drift0r