Add Thom Yorke to the list of prominent musical figures who have strange, negative opinions about YouTube. The Radiohead frontman was recently profiled in Italian newspaper La Repubblica, and in the most headline-worthy portion of the interview, he decried YouTube’s advertising model and compared the world’s most popular video site to Nazi Germany.

La Repubblica’s profile of Yorke is available in Italian on the paper’s website, and music blog Consequence of Sound translated a few of his juiciest quotes into English. According to the translation, Yorke uses ad blocking software because he doesn’t want YouTube to profit from his music. “A friend of mine told me about this app to skip commercials on YouTube,” he said. “They put advertising before any content, making a lot of money and yet, artists are not paid or are paid smalls sums, and apparently this is fine for them.”

I’m not sure the logic behind this statement, but let’s try to parse it. Apparently, Yorke is concerned with the revenue split between YouTube and its creators, through which the former entity takes home 45% of all advertising income. His solution to this split is…to block all ads, therefore robbing both YouTube and musicians of the ability to make any money at all. Well, that’s certainly principled of him.

His stance, however, doesn’t make much sense, because thanks to the Content ID system, musicians can very easily claim rogue uploads of their songs and profit from them. If Yorke things YouTube is giving creators a raw deal, I hope he never checks out Facebook, where a broken system has allowed unauthorized uploaders to “freeboot” videos and claim millions of unwarranted views (and all the ad revenue therein).

Yorke, unfortunately, did not stop there. Instead, he carried on with a truly bizarre analogy: “All I know is that they make money from the work of many artists who do not derive any benefit…‘Oh, sorry, it was yours? Now it is ours. No, no, we are joking, it is always yours.’ They seize it. It’s like what the Nazis did during the Second World War. In fact they all did that during the war, the British too: steal the art from other countries. What’s the difference?”

To answer Yorke’s question, there are quite a few differences, the most significant of which I detailed above, but if he’s willing to compare a popular video sharing site to the Third Reich, he probably doesn’t have the most nuanced view of this topic. Sorry, Thom: Your music is great, but your understanding of YouTube is extremely poor. You should read up on the history of YouTube ad rates, and as long as you’re doing your research, you should learn about Godwin’s Law, too.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, YouTube by Sam Gutelle
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In October, Reddit announced Formative, a web series that tells the stories of well-known entrepreneurs. About six weeks later, the first episode of the series arrived, with business owner, YouTube star, and filmmaker Casey Neistat taking center stage.

When Formative was first revealed, Reddit invited its users to list any entrepreneurs who they felt were worthy of a profile in one of the series’ episodes. The responses were collected in a single thread, and users upvoted their favorite choices to the top. Neistat received more love than almost any other entrepreneur, with only Elon Musk receiving more upvotes.

As the user suggestions began to take shape, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian explained that Musk would be a tricky guy to get a hold of, and so Neistat’s story became a logical starting point for Formative. The 34-year-old Neistat doesn’t have a typical YouTube origin story; instead, his early life includes a teenage pregnancy, a job as a dishwasher, and a one-way train ticket to New York City. Now, he has more than one million subscribers on YouTube and his own social media startup, Beme.

Formative, which is sponsored by the Google Cloud Platform, joins Reddit’s other recent forays into the world of original programming. The “front page of the Internet” has also produced a series called Cyborg Nation as well as video versions of some of its “Ask Me Anything” threads. Formative is the company’s most polished and crisply-edited video work to date, and if the other entrepreneurs have stories that are anywhere near as interesting as Neistat’s, the series will be worth following. You can check it out (and watch some behind-the-scenes videos) on its official subreddit.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News, reddit by Sam Gutelle
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Fullscreen has added an experienced online video executive to its leadership team. Andy Forssell, who served as the acting CEO of Hulu for the majority of 2013 and most recently held the CEO position at ShowYou, is the online video network’s new Chief Operating Officer.

As Fullscreen’s COO, Forssell will be in charge of the day-to-day functions of the company’s creator, brand, and consumer-focused divisions. He will work alongside Fullscreen’s other top executives, including CEO George Strompolos and President Ezra Cooperstein. “Andy is a proven leader who not only understands the new world of online video, he helped build it,” said Strompolos in a press release. “As COO, Andy will help us scale and manage our operation as we prepare for even more growth and innovation.”

Forssell became Hulu’s CEO in 2013 after the platform’s longtime leader, Jason Kilar, decided to step down from his position. Forssell was in charge of Hulu during a turbulent time, when rumors swirled about the company’s potential sale to a big-name buyer. In the end, no deal was made, and Hulu ended up hiring former FOX exec Mike Hopkins as its new CEO in October 2013.

After ceding his post to Hopkins, Forssell did not stick around at Hulu for long. Instead, he joined ShowYou, where he served as the content aggregator’s CEO while it built up its own subscription-based service.

By joining Fullscreen, Forssell will now get to work with one of the strongest teams in the digital video industry. “The media landscape is changing even faster than many of us would have predicted a few years ago, and Fullscreen is perfectly positioned to capitalize as that evolution accelerates,” he added in the release. “I look forward to working with George, Ezra and the talented team at Fullscreen to continue building what is fast becoming a truly premier multi-platform media company.”

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Fullscreen, News by Sam Gutelle
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The newest partner for Connor Franta, Andrew Graham, and Jeremy Wineberg’s Heard Well label is Jc Caylen. Caylen, a 23-year-old social media star who has nearly 2.5 million subscribers on his main YouTube channel, has announced Neptones, a compilation album featuring some of his favorite songs.

Neptones sounds like the name of a college a cappella group, but it will actually feature an assortment of up-and-coming artists curated by Caylen, who announced the album on his Twitter feed on Black Friday, November 27. “I honestly can’t wait for y’all to hear what I put together for ya,” he wrote in a tweet. He shared a few more words about the album in an announcement video he released on his YouTube channel.

Caylen’s effort resembles the three other albums we’ve seen from Heard Well so far. In addition to Franta, social media stars Anthony “Lohanthony” Quintal and Amanda Steele have curated their own compilations, which have generated praise from their respective fan bases as well as strong sales. Caylen, who has already starred in a documentary about YouTube supergroup Our2ndLife (of which he and Franta were both members), is likely to draw plenty of attention for his own album.

Neptones is currently available for pre-order, where Caylen’s fans have begun to purchase the album en masse. A deluxe edition, which retails for $19.99 and features Caylen’s signature, has already sold out. The standard version, which costs $14.99, is still available, though given the tenacity of Caylen’s fans, it too is liable to sell out ahead of the album’s December 4th release date.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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Bundling is dead. But long live bundling because Amazon is interested in making something old new again by giving its Prime subscribers more video options. According to Bloomberg, Amazon is reportedly talking with TV networks and third-party streaming video providers to bundle more streaming services with its own Prime Instant Video offering.

Insiders told Bloomberg, who originally broke the news, Amazon will start offering Prime subscribers the option of adding on other on-demand subscriptions (like the ones currently offered by HBO or Showtime) to their accounts. Prime subscribers will also be able to select pre-made bundles created by Amazon. Sources said the online retail giant and streaming video platform might be ready to launch its bundled streaming packages as early as December 2015.

Additionally, Amazon will feature videos from its programming partners on Prime, and build individual landing pages for each service so subscribers can differentiate between Amazon’s videos and those of its partners. The streaming video platform reportedly plans to act as a customer service liaison between Prime subscribers and video partners, and is creating technology to allow users to log in to other streaming services with their Prime accounts.

Variety confirmed Amazon’s push into offering a more robust streaming video offering to its subscribers, but also noted several sources are leery of Amazon’s success. For example, Variety’s sources claim at least one major subscription service has refused to partner with Amazon’s new streaming bundles. This service’s decision was supposedly based on the fact that the service isn’t willing to give up its direct billing relationship with its own subscribers to Amazon.

An Amazon rep declined to comment on both Bloomberg and Variety’s reports.

Filed under: Amazon, Articles, Channels, News by Bree Brouwer
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Snapchat is getting into the spirit of the winter season. The popular messaging app, which deletes texts and videos after 24 hours, added a holiday-themed channel from DIY lifestyle company Brit & Co. to its branded content platform Discover.

Sponsored by Google, Brit & Co.’s holiday channel will feature about 14 pieces of new content each day, ranging from videos, animated GIFs, and text with photos. The DIY company’s publishings will center on different themes (like preparing holiday food, giving gifts, and decorating ideas), with Brit & Co.’s Discover icon changing to reflect the theme of the day. Brit & Co. CEO Brit Morin told AdAge her company has created almost 300 pieces of content for release on Snapchat.

However, Brit & Co.’s holiday content doesn’t follow the traditional publishing format of the Discover platform. Where most of Discover’s partners release content on a regular basis, Brit & Co.’s content will only show up during two different weeks. The first batch of holiday content will live on Discover from November 27 through December 3, 2015, while the second round will appear from December 18 through 24.

Morin said her company and Snapchat made the decision to release content in two different chunks because they “didn’t want user fatigue around too much holiday content.” “Both us and Snapchat are looking at it as a test for each other and trying to understand if this type of content is really valuable around the different seasons of the year, or if it makes sense for Brit & Co. to have a broader set of content later down the road,” Morin explained.

Brit & Co. is only the latest brand to join Snapchat Discover. In August, the branded content platform added Mashable, Tastemade, and IGN as publishing partners. More recently, media brand Vox joined Discover, bringing the platform’s total number of publishing partners to 17.

Snapchat currently claims four billion video views each day across at least 100 million active global users per month.

Filed under: Articles, News, Snapchat by Bree Brouwer
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The first video ever posted to YouTube was co-founder Jared Kawim’s “Me at the zoo” clip from April 2005. Now, more than ten years after YouTube’s inception, a group of video artists will explore the impact Google’s online video site has had on the world of new media, communication, and contemporary video art through an exhibit called Ten Years at the Zoo.

From December 13, 2015, through January 16, 2016, Ten Years at the Zoo will be on display in a hexagonal-shaped quartz room at Las Naves in Valencia, Spain. The curated show will host audiovisual displays from artists Andrés Galeano, Claudia Maté, Emilio Gomariz, Lorna Mills, Katie Torn, and Vince McKelvie. These creators’ works will study how YouTube has changed over the last ten years, how the site has impacted information sharing through its audiovisual format, and especially how YouTube has changed society’s ways of communication and behavior.

Probably the most interesting aspect of Ten Years at the Zoo is how the selected artists will all incorporate a video in at least a few of their works, which will be displayed on screens attached to the walls. New media artist and exhibit co-commissioner Carlos Sáez told Vice’s The Creators Project blog the artists would use the videos “as image resources, as objects of study or broadcast mediums.” Sáez also noted none of the works on display at Ten Years at the Zoo would be complete without the videos.

“Our intention was to study how the changes in communication driven by the different video social media affect video art,” Sáez said. “We were particularly interested in how [the] most popular platforms and their properties shape the artworks, creating completely new narrative styles.”

You can get more information on Ten Years at the Zoo by visiting the exhibit’s official Las Naves page (you’ll have to translate the text if you’re a non-native Spanish speaker).

Filed under: Articles, News, YouTube by Bree Brouwer
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CollegeHumor is getting a comical behind-the-scenes look at the yearly Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. The comedy brand will release a series of interview videos called Macy’s Confetti Carpet on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2015.

Hosted by TV personality Ross Mathews, CollegeHumor’s Macy’s Confetti Carpet interviews will feature various Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade celebrities and performers before they head out onto the parade route. This is the second year CollegeHumor has hosted the seasonal series. In 2014, Jena Friedman and Pat Cassels stopped well-known names like Sesame Street’s Elmo, Frozen’s Idina Menzel, and YouTube a cappella group Pentatonix to ask them inane questions about their careers or their involvement in the Macy’s parade. This video of last year’s Confetti Carpet will give you a taste of what to expect on the Macy’s channel today:

Macy’s Confetti Carpet may be only a temporary series of clips, but CollegeHumor has plenty of humorous content for viewers to choose from. For TV fans, CollegeHumor released the late-night talk show Middle of the Night Show on MTV’s linear cable channel. And for digital connoisseurs, CollegeHumor recently debuted the 52-episode series Fatal Decision on Verizon’s free go90 mobile video service.

You can catch all CollegeHumor’s Macy’s Confetti Carpet videos during Thanksgiving Day on the Macy’s YouTube channel.

Filed under: Articles, CollegeHumor, News by Bree Brouwer
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National Geographic is working to improve its digital presence through online video. The science and nature-based media publisher has increased the production of three of its original series. National Geographic will also launch an all-new series called Best Job Ever on November 26, 2015.

National Geographic previously launched three series — Expedition Raw, Campfire Stories, and Today I Learned — on its YouTube channel. Expedition Raw features unseen footage from some of the nature media company’s top explorers during their adventures, while Campfire Stories highlights National Geographic reporters and their most unusual incidences in the field. Today I Learned is a trivia series where explorers provide viewers with interesting facts about the world.

Episodes of each series were released sporadically over the last few months. However, National Geographic is now solidifying a more regular production and debut schedule for each episode. The media brand will also add to the schedule the new series Best Job Ever, which debuts on Thanksgiving Day and shows viewers some of the world’s strangest careers.

“For the series that we’ve already soft-launched, we’re now pulling them into a regular cadence in order to build and meet that expectation amongst our fans,” explained James Williams, Director of Digital Video for National Geographic Partners, in an email to Tubefilter. “That means every Tuesday and Thursday you’ll see some new, amazing and explorer-focused digital content coming out of National Geographic.”

In addition to these four digital series, National Geographic previously announced two other series at its Digital Content Newfronts 2015 presentation. The first is #InaWeekend, a show where a group of friends tries to have as many adventures as possible in the span of 55 hours. The next digital series National Geographic announced was Investigation Explorer, where viewers get the deeper story behind a current news event.

You can watch National Geographic’s four newest series on nationalgeographic.com or the brand’s official YouTube channel. New episodes of Today I Learned and Campfire Stories will debut every other Tuesday, with Best Job Ever and Expedition Raw releasing new episodes every other Thursday.

Filed under: Articles, Branded Entertainment, News by Bree Brouwer
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When you’re done stuffing your face this Thanksgiving, you might need a playlist of videos to fit the passivity of your digestion process. If you like to binge watch while you binge eat, the YouTube community has once again provided a big helping of videos themed around Turkey Day. Here are some of our favorites:

7. “The Daily Show – Trevor’s Thanksgiving Thankstacular Round-Up” by Comedy Central

When Trevor Noah became the host of The Daily Show earlier this year, he marked the web video world–which Jon Stewart had barely explored during his regime–as a place where he could make his mark. In this video, a Daily Show web exclusive, Noah draws in bonus viewers by sharing some of the most awkward Thanksgiving-related clips from major news networks.

6. “Native Americans Review Thanksgiving Storybooks” by BuzzFeedYellow

As American society becomes more progressive, representation has become an important part of holiday traditions, and in the Thanksgiving story, where Native Americans are in the spotlight, channels like BuzzFeedYellow have an opportunity to explore the way our Native peoples are displayed. This video accomplished that goal by examining Thanksgiving storybooks through the eyes of Native Americans.

5. “Turkey Flautas Recipe” by Food Wishes

Chef John of Food Wishes has made some of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes on the Internet. If you’re looking to create a wholly-traditional Turkey Day menu, videos like this one are probably not the ones you want to watch. If, however, you’re looking to get a little experimental in the kitchen, Chef John’s unorthodox turkey flautas are worth a look.

4. “Thanksgiving Apple Margarita Cups”

You’ll need some beverages to serve with those turkey flautas, and why not pair Chef John with Skyy John? The latter John’s drinks channel, Tipsy Bartender, has shared several fun recipes for Thanksgiving potables. This one, for margaritas served out of hollow apples, is the most festive.

3. “Happy Thanksgiving” by Action Movie Kid

Action Movie Kid James Hashimoto is celebrating Thanksgiving with his father Daniel, and this year, he got to carve the turkey with his very own lightsaber. You would think, given all of James’ CGI destruction, that Daniel would not let his son hold any more dangerous weapons. Apparently not.

2. “10 Thanksgiving Food Life Hacks” by CrazyRussianHacker

Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but at least one crazy Russian has some DIY tips that can help us out as we cook our meals. Some of his projects, such as the vase he makes out of ice and floral decorations, are brilliant. Others are a little sillier, but all ten of his tips provide at least some degree of lifehackery for your Thanksgiving preparations.

1. “How to Make a Thanksgiving Dinner From Scratch” by How To Make Everything

In September, Andy George burst onto the YouTube scene with a viral video in which he made a sandwich from scratch. He grew all his vegetables, hunted all his meat, and assembled all the ingredients in his kitchen. For Thanksgiving, George gave the same treatment to a Thanksgiving dinner. Among other steps, he had to harvest his own sugar, dive for cranberries, and hunt turkey. The result is impressive, and it’s a fascinating look at the way our food is made. On George’s channel, you can also find individual videos that go into detail about each course of his homemade Thanksgiving dinner.

Do you have a favorite Halloween video we didn’t include? Let us know in the comments and check out previous Countdowns here.

Filed under: Articles, Countdown, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by OpenSlate. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.

It’s another installment of the weekly Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed U.S. YouTube Channels and a 21-year-old pop star is still in the very top spot.

Chart Toppers

Justin Bieber maintained his YouTube dominance. The international pop star (who just killed it at the American Music Awards) stayed in top spot on the U.S. chart for the third week in a row. New music videos from his latest studio album propelled his channel to more than 163.1 million views in the week. In a very distant second place is The Ellen Show. The YouTube home of Ellen DeGeneres’ eponymous daytime syndicated talk show ended the week with over 102.8 million views.

Ryan ToysReview jumped up to the #3 spot. One of the world’s biggest unboxing channels for kids shut up 28% in views to close out the week with more than 100.5 million of them. WWE is next up in fourth place. The YouTube repository for clips and highlights from World Wrestling Entertainment was up 4% in views to top out at nearly 99.6 million views on the week.

And rounding out the Top 5 is FunToyzCollector (aka the channel previously known as DisneyCollectorBR). The anonymous channel featuring a pair of adult hands playing with and unboxing children’s toys racked up nearly 93.9 million views throughout the week.

Top Gainers

The honor of one of our Top Gainers in the U.S. this week goes to Roman Atwood Vlogs.

The multiple-times-a-week vlog channel of the incredibly popular (and sometimes controversial) YouTube prankster had a solid week on YouTube. A steady stream of prank videos, behind-the-scenes clips, and day-in-the-life shots of Atwood and his family helped the 32-year-old YouTube star’s channel to a 22% week-over-week increase in views, more than 25.2 million views on the week, and the #50 spot on the U.S. chart.

Channel Distribution

The top 50 most viewed U.S. YouTube channels this week amassed a total of 2,384,305,077 views. Here’s the distribution of a few of those channels by multi-channel network:

• VEVO: 17 channels in the U.S. Top 50, with Justin Bieber the highest-ranked channel of the network at #1.
• Maker Studios: 5 channels in the Top 50, with DisneyCarToys at #10.
• BuzzFeed, Collective Digital Studio, MovieClips, OhMyGenius: 2 channels each in the Top 50, with BuzzFeed’s BuzzFeed Video at #8, Collective Digital Studio’s FamilyFunPack at #6, Movieclips’ Movieclips Trailers at #30, and OhMyGenius’ Kids Channel at #33.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all of our news at Tubefilter by subscribing to our newsletter,following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook, and watching our videos on YouTube.

OpenSlate is a video content analytics platform that tracks more than 250,000 YouTube video channels and measures their ability to attract, engage and influence an audience. By providing one consistent measure of quality – the SlateScore™ – OpenSlate helps marketers, producers and agencies hone their online video marketing strategy.

Filed under: Articles, News, Statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Joshua Cohen
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YouTube has a new way for some Middle Eastern viewers to watch videos on the platform. Google’s online video site has officially introduced its long-awaited offline viewing mode in the YouTube mobile app for users in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, and Algeria.

According to a company blog post, citizens of these five Middle Eastern countries have increased their smartphone adoption and usage. However, local data providers haven’t been able to keep up with the demand. Plus, the expensive cost of internet in places like Egypt means the less fortunate can’t afford regular internet access (Egyptian Streets reports the average cost of internet in that country is $16.83 USD per megabits per second, as opposed to the global average of $5.58 USD per mbps). As such, YouTube decided to try reducing the speed and data requirements for people “using its platform in places where there are challenges to access.”

YouTube accomplished this task by letting app users in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, and Algeria download select popular videos for offline viewing during times where internet connectivity is limited or non-existent. All users in these countries have to do is tap the “offline” icon on videos where the feature is available. Then, YouTube app users can watch their saved videos for up to 48 hours later. Music videos, however, are apparently excluded from offline viewing.

“Starting today, the majority of YouTube videos in Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Libya and Yemen will become available for people to view offline, from popular talk shows to local comedy,” wrote YouTube Product Manager Matthew Darby. “Making these popular videos available for offline playback will help people move past the challenges of data connection, speed and cost to enjoy a smooth, buffer-free version of their favorite content.”

YouTube’s offline feature was announced over two years ago in September 2013. Since then, Google’s online video site has slowly been rolling out the save-for-later mode on its mobile app for different regions around the world. YouTube hinted at offline viewing capabilities in an August 2014 Google Play screenshot. A month later, the online video site introduced offline viewing via its app in India, as well as in the Philippines and Indonesia. And, of course, YouTube’s new subscription service will have an offline viewing feature, too.

You can read more about YouTube’s offline capabilities on YouTube’s support page.

Filed under: Articles, News, YouTube by Bree Brouwer
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