Netflix has never been one to reveal ratings or viewership stats of its original shows and films. But CCO Ted Sarandos recently broke the streaming service’s rule when he said three million people have already watched the Netflix original film Beasts of No Nation in North America alone.

Originally picked up by Netflix in March 2015, Beasts of No Nation is directed by Cary Fukunaga (of the first season of True Detective fame) and stars Idris Elba (of lots of things fame, including The Wire) as an African warlord who recruits an orphaned boy into his army. Netflix started streaming the film to 40 million homes on October 16. A few days later, a Netflix rep told Deadline it wasn’t going to issue any metrics on the film but the streaming platform was “very happy” with the title’s results.

Now, Sarandos made an exception to Netflix’s notorious no-ratings rule when he told Deadline about the millions of North American views. And this three million figure could only be the tip of the iceberg. Over the course of two weeks, Netflix made Beasts of No Nation available to over 69 million households worldwide in over 50 countries. And the total viewership numbers remain hidden, as is typical for Netflix. Sarandos did clarify Beasts of No Nation was the most-watched movie on Netflix in every country the streaming platform services, even in the nations where specialty films can’t or don’t usually succeed in terms of box office revenue.

“[Beasts of No Nation] was No. 1 in really diverse places in the world — Japan, Brazil, Mexico, places where these films typically never even open,” Sarandos said. “It’s been incredibly gratifying to see these audiences respond to this film.”

However, the financial success of Netflix’s investment into Beasts of No Nation is still undetermined. The streaming platform reportedly doled out $12 million to distribute the film, but only made about $50,000 from a limited 31-theater release. Large movie theater chains like AMC and Regal boycotted the Netflix film because they wanted the SVOD platform to wait 90 days after theatrical release to stream the film, instead of debuting Beasts of No Nation online and in theaters at the same time.

Sarandos doesn’t seem fazed. “There’s only so much we can do about what happens in the theater,” the Netflix CCO said. “We can make it available and try to book it, but if theater owners don’t want to book it, they won’t book it. Whether it’s in a theater or at home, our focus is on the total audience of the film. We just want people to see and love this movie. And they are seeing, and loving, this movie.”

To Netflix’s credit, critics certainly love Beasts of No Nation. The movie currently has an overall 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience score of 94%. 

Filed under: Articles, Netflix, News by Bree Brouwer
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It’s Halloween season, which means it’s time for digital content creators to release a new assortment of frightening videos. One of the companies getting in on this fun is Mashable, which has teamed up with Eli Roth’s Crypt TV for a series of horror vignettes titled Urban Legends.

Each of the four episodes in Urban Legends is based on a tall tale that has been passed down from campfire to campfire. “Under the Bed,” for example, retells the classic tale of a killer who imitates his victim’s dog by licking her. Another short, “The Call,” delivers a twist on the classic “the call is coming from inside the house” scenario.

Each urban legend can be viewed on Crypt TV’s Facebook page, but if you wish to watch them in a more stylish manner, you can head over to Mashable, where a snazzy landing page invites users into a haunted house and shares several more stories of “local lore” beyond the four that were adapted into videos.

For Crypt TV, this is a busy time of year, and Urban Legends gives it another platform on which it can weave its tales. “October is a great time to tell scary stories and we were so excited to partner with Mashable to bring some of the best urban legends to life,” said Roth in a press release. “I think telling urban legends in this short format allowed us to inject some extra scare and intrigue to these stories and bring them to a digital audience in a unique manner.”

On Mashable’s side of things, Urban Legends stands as one of the first project’s from Mashable Studios. The digital publication’s video production wing launched earlier this year.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, Mashable, News by Sam Gutelle
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One new YouTuber just learned the internet isn’t just full of trolls. Thanks to a boost from Reddit, a kid’s dinosaur-themed channel dubbed The Prehistoric Channel has reached more than 88,000 subscribers and over 2.5 million collective video views in just a few short days.

Redditor Joulethief brought attention to The Prehistoric Channel after posting one of the adolescent’s videos to the subreddit r/videos on October 23, 2015. Joulethief’s post noted how the channel owner had been making dinosaur videos almost every day since he launched in May 2015. The Prehistoric Channel YouTuber uses nothing more than his large collection of dino figurines to film reenactments, review toys, and generally have fun doing what his channel’s about page says (to show viewers “how dinosaurs and prehistoric life lived, fought, and survived”). Joulethief’s post made it onto the front page of Reddit, and over the course of three days, Reddit users bumped up The Prehistoric Channel’s subscriber count from a mere 22 to a whopping 88,000. Many Redditors just wanted to support the young man’s passion and ambition regardless of the videos’ low filming quality, while others credit the nostalgia of their childhood days for subscribing. Some Reddit users even think the dino-loving kid should be on Jurassic World 2:

It only took The Prehistoric Channel’s owner a few hours to realize he’d gained thousands of subscribers. Overjoyed, he then posted a video after he hit 29,342 subscribers, saying, “I don’t even know if that’s true or not, this could be a problem with YouTube. But if it’s true this means I have hit fame level! And if this is true it is just so huge and for all of you who have subscribed to me, and watched my videos and liked them I would like to say thank you so much.”

But not all Redditors thought subscribing to The Prehistoric Channel and watching its videos were good ideas. One user with name Primnu warned that these actions were only falsely inflating the young boy’s channel, and that once his view counts went down and his so-called subscribers stopped watching his content, “he’ll be wondering to himself what he’s doing wrong.”

Another user named popedarren expressed concern for the boy’s potential loss of innocence:

However, it seems unfair to base The Prehistoric Channel owner’s future success solely on his “naive” reliance on views, subscriber count, and fame. After all, this kid has thrown his heart and soul into making a video almost every day for the last four months because he enjoys it, not because he was under the impression he’d gain internet fame. The channel’s “about” page even encourages viewers to look at other channels which produce “even better dinosaurs videos.” Plus, this boy may very well know his channel’s new-found fame is just temporary, especially if his parents really are helping mod comments and run his channel. As long as he continues to focus on the happiness he gets from creating content, he may very well continue to find success of all sorts thanks to his genuine enthusiasm.  

This isn’t the first time Redditors have rallied to make a young YouTuber’s day better. Back in February 2014, a boy with the channel name Sir Fedora posted a video showing his excitement at getting the one “like” he asked his audience to give him. A Reddit user found Sir Fedora’s video and encouraged other forum users to give the kid more likes to see his reaction. Sir Fedora ended up with thousands of likes (the video currently boasts over 36,000 of them), and now the young man is internet famous, with more than 38,000 Twitter followers and 145,000 YouTube subscribers.

If you’re a dinosaur person, or just generally want to feel like a kid again, make sure to check out and subscribe to The Prehistoric Channel.

Filed under: Articles, News, reddit, YouTube by Bree Brouwer
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The news about Yahoo’s original programming has gone from bad to worse. Less than a week after it revealed a $42 million loss in its original video division during the third quarter of 2015, the media company cancelled its plans to release a TV-length comedy called The Pursuit, according to a report by Variety.

The Pursuit, from executive producer Scott Stuber, is a comedy about a group of young friends who are seeking love and success in modern day New York City. Does that sound familiar at all? Now that The Pursuit is out at Yahoo, it is free to be picked up by another network or streaming video distributor.

Yahoo’s decision to axe The Pursuit comes six months after the comedy was announced at the media company’s annual Newfronts presentation. Notably, The Pursuit was the only program out of the 18 on Yahoo’s Newfronts slate to feature a half-hour format. Given the poor financial returns Yahoo received from half-hour comedies Community, Other Space, and Sin City Saints, the decision to cut The Pursuit makes sense, even if it doesn’t bode well for the future of Yahoo’s original programming.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Yahoo! by Sam Gutelle
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A handful of YouTube stars, Twitch streamers, and other creative types are involved in a new project on Instagram, but no video is involved. Instead, creators like Meghan “Strawburry17” Camarena appear in a series of high-quality photos, which together form a superhero whodunit dubbed #SpideyMurderMystery.

As its title suggests, the #SpideyMurderMystery takes place in the Marvel universe, with characters from the Spider-Man canon battling one another. Their struggles are photographed by Michael Becker across daily sets of nine images.

The mystery will unfold during the week of October 26th, with each daily photo set focusing on a specific character. Up first is Gwen Stacy, portrayed by Camarena; she’ll be followed by Yu Komori (stuntman Yoshua Sudarso), Silk (Joanna Sotomura), Mary Jane (Ashlyn Pearce), and Peter Parker (Twitch streamer Wesley Johnson). While the same set of nine captions remains the same across all characters, the changing nature of the images themselves suggest a larger story at play.

There is a darkness surrounding our heroes. #spideymurdermystery Photo by @michaelbecker88 Makeup by @marylinmakeup Hair by @mrbradleydarling Suit by @therpcstudio

A photo posted by strawburry17 (@strawburry17) on Oct 26, 2015 at 12:07pm PDT

As the story unfolds, additional social media influencers, such as Nikki Philippi and Joey Graceffa, will promote it with images of their own. spider-verse. “If you’re not familiar with the characters we made the story line simple for anyone to enjoy but also gave a few nods to the spidey fandom,” reads a press sheet discussing the series.

#SpideyMurderMystery is not your typical digital series, and its intricately constructed design won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s certainly a novel idea, however, and so we’re curious to see where it goes. The quality of Becker’s photography makes this an interesting ride, even if we can’t solve the mystery just yet.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Strawburry17 by Sam Gutelle
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Rooster Teeth has a new series within a series set to take advantage of one of the biggest entertainment events of the last decade. The Fullscreen-owned Austin production company will run the sketch comedy and Star Wars spoof series Troopin’ starting November 2015 during its Colton Dunn-hosted show Rooster Teeth Entertainment System (RT-ES).

Created by Lamar Woods and Dunn (who also stars in Rooster Teeth’s recently-premiered feature film Lazer Team), the series-within-a-series Troopin’ introduces viewers to a black stormtrooper named Darnell (played by Ify Nwadiwe) and his wife Shonda (Ashanti Brown). It’s set to explore how the hardest part of Darnell’s job is dealing with life, love, and his Jedi neighbors (and, surprisingly, not ignorant individuals who were up in arms over the casting of John Boyega as a black stormtrooper for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens). 

“Troopin’ is inspired by old school sitcoms like Good Times and What’s Happening,” Dunn said in an email to Tubefilter. “Lamar and I thought it would be funny to put a show like that in the Star Wars universe. We also enjoyed exploring what a satellite character like a stormtrooper has for a personal life. They can’t just march up and down the loading bay all day.”

Directed by Weldon Powers, Troopin’ will debut at some point in November and air during episodes of RT-ES, which is exclusively available for Rooster Teeth sponsors on the company’s site or dedicated app. Episodes of Troopin’ will be available on the Rooster Teeth site and app starting at 5 PM PST every Sunday.

Filed under: Articles, News, Rooster Teeth by Bree Brouwer
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It’s a good time to be a Canadian Star Wars fan. Netflix has acquired exclusive streaming rights to Disney’s Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens for its Canadian subscribers, starting some time in late summer 2016.

Netflix’s acquisition of streaming rights to Disney’s seventh installment in the Star Wars franchise came at a particularly advantageous moment in the Mouse House’s distribution timeline for Canada. While Netflix’s pact with Disney doesn’t begin until 2016, the agreement includes any 2015 titles released after Disney’s previous distribution deals with Canada’s Corus Entertainment and Bell Canada come to an end. Since The Force Awakens drops on December 18, 2015, this means Netflix Canada gained streaming rights to the highly-anticipated flick.

In the U.S., however, Netflix subscribers who also aren’t pay-TV customers won’t get to stream Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens anytime soon. Disney has an exclusive pay-TV distribution deal with cable channel Starz through the end of 2015, which means The Force Awakens will catch the tail-end of that deal and live on Starz for a while. Only after Disney and Starz end their contract will Netflix U.S. have a chance at picking up rights to The Force Awakens.

And U.K. residents shouldn’t expect to see The Force Awakens on any streaming service, either. While Disney has plans to release its own subscription service called Disney Life in Great Britain, the platform won’t include any titles from either the Star Wars or Marvel franchises. Variety reports Disney is considering launching individual services for the science fiction and comic book-themed brands in the future.

The Force Awakens won’t hit Netflix Canada (or any other region) anytime soon. Under the deal with Disney, Netflix will start streaming The Force Awakens in the Great White North in August 2016, approximately eight months after the film hits theaters on December 18, 2015. However, Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos said in a Q3 2015 earnings call the streaming platform is in talks with Disney to license old Star Wars movies.

“It’s up to Disney how they want to manage access to those assets before, during or after the release of Star Wars VII,” Sarandos explained. “So it’s certainly an ongoing discussion.”

Filed under: Articles, Disney, Netflix, News, Star Wars by Bree Brouwer
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On September 25th, production company New Form Digital announced its plan to bring six new series to Go90, a mobile video service from Verizon. Now, about four weeks after Go90’s launch, the first of those six series–The Fourth Door–is set for an October 27th premiere.

The Fourth Door, which comes from BlackBoxTV mastermind Tony E. Valenzuela and actor Jarrett Sleeper, began as a pilot, which was released as part of New Form’s first round of incubated short films. The full 12-episode series will center on Lain (Monique Coleman), who must rescue her lover from an otherworldly Limbo. A trailer, recently released on New Form’s YouTube channel, forecasts all sorts of supernatural twists, as well as a nefarious King of Limbo portrayed by YouTube star Joey Graceffa.

“New Form Digital was proud to work with Tony and Jarrett to create an original and suspenseful story that is sure to leave viewers on the edge of their seats,” said Kathleen Grace, Chief Creative Officer for New Form Digital, in a press release. “It takes this level of creativity and storytelling to stand out and we’re confident The Fourth Door will shine on go90 as a high-quality production.”

The Fourth Door will be the third project from New Form’s Incubator Series to arrive as a full-length show. The first two, KickThePJ’s Oscar’s Hotel and Sawyer Hartman’s The Parallax Theory, premiered on Vimeo On Demand in September 2015. Two more projects adapted from New Form’s first round of pilots–POYKPAC’s Mr. Student Body President and Anna Akana’s Miss Earth–will also come to Go90 as part of New Form’s six-series slate.

The first two episodes of The Fourth Door will go live on Go90 on the 27th. From there, new episodes will arrive each Tuesday and Thursday for the next six weeks. New Form didn’t reveal whether The Fourth Door will see a wider release on non-Go90 platforms.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, New Form, News by Sam Gutelle
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On October 25th, the Jacksonville Jaguars defeated the Buffalo Bills in a game that began at 9:30 AM EST. The game was not just significant as one of three NFL matchups that will be played at London’s Wembley Stadium this year; it was also the first NFL to ever be broadcast exclusively via live stream. In June, Yahoo announced its plan to stream the game, and it followed through, offering up a free feed that reportedly reached 15.2 million unique viewers.

On the surface, that number seems huge. It beat out the October 19th presentation of ESPN’s Monday Night Football, which counted 13.9 million viewers. In total, Yahoo’s stream received 33.6 million total viewers, and averaged 2.36 million of them per minute. NBC’s live stream of last year’s Super Bowl, for comparison, topped out around 1.3 million concurrent viewers.

The popularity of Yahoo’s stream was aided by a number of factors, including the presence of more than five million international viewers; an exclusive 9 AM timeslot that featured no other NFL matchups; a close, exciting game that ended with a 34-31 Jacksonville victory; the high quality of the live stream itself, which prompted NFL fans to create a “Yahoo appreciation thread” on Reddit; and, perhaps, the presence of fans who would have otherwise streamed the game illegally.

“We’re thrilled with the results of our initial step distributing an NFL game to a worldwide audience and with the work of our partner, Yahoo,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL’s senior VP of media strategy, business development and sales.

At the same time, there are questions about how popular Yahoo’s live stream really was. Variety noted that Yahoo automatically streamed the game on its homepage and several of its apps, thus creating some unwitting viewers in the process. Also, the game’s average viewership-per-minute was likely much lower than a typical NFL broadcast, though Yahoo and the NFL did not release enough data to confirm or deny that hypothesis.

Here’s the bottom line: Yahoo’s NFL live stream seems like it was a worthwhile experiment for both companies involved, but it’s not going to incite a live-streaming football revolution just yet. Luckily for the NFL, it has several more international games planned, so it will have numerous opportunities to further test the live-streaming waters.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, NFL, Yahoo! by Sam Gutelle
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Toby Turner (aka Tobuscus) is under new representation. The YouTube superstar and avid gamer has officially signed with United Talent Agency (UTA).

A UTA spokesperson says the agency will work with Turner to bring his “unique brand to an even wider audience.” That “unique brand” has already helped Turner establish himself in the online video world with objectively impressive numbers. The 30-year-old digital star has risen to fame for his comedy skits, song parodies, and series like Literal Trailers. Turner runs three different channels on YouTube, which collectively boast over 15.2 million subscribers and more than 3.5 billion video views. Additionally, the YouTuber’s web series Tobuscus Animated Adventures was such a hit that the HarperCollins imprint Tegen Books turned it into a series of three publications.

In addition to his comedic antics, Turner is widely-known for being an avid gamer. This love of video games helped the digital star raise over $640,000 in July 2013 on Indiegogo to create the animated game Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards. Turner was also the first YouTube star to found his own video game studio, dubbed Tobuscus Game Studios. The Maker Studios-partnered vlogger is also the host of the Endemol Beyond video game competition series Legends of Gaming, which debuted on October 7, 2015.

Turner is managed by Untitled Entertainment.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, News, UTA by Bree Brouwer
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Another week. Another inconceivable online video milestone is surpassed by PewDiePie.

Less than two months after the twentysomething Felix Kjellberg became the first individual on Earth with a YouTube channel to receive more than 10,000,000,000 views, the Swede’s online video repository for Let’s Play videos, weekly-or-so personal vlogs, charitable campaigns, and high-pitched irreverence also became the first YouTube channel with more than 40 million subscribers.

PewDiePie crossed the 40,000,000 subscriber mark sometime on Saturday, October 24. The biggest channel on YouTube hit 39 million subscribers back on Monday, August 31. That means it took PewDiePie 55 days to recruit the latest million members to his Bro Army, which averages out to more than 18,180 new subscribers per day, 757 new subs per hour, 12 new subs per minute, and roughly one new subscriber every 4.75 seconds.

PewDiePie’s subscriber acquisition rate is nothing short of incredible, though it’s no longer in a league of its own. Kjellberg’s channel is consistently at the top of the charts, but in recent months has been bumped from its usual #1 spot. Both Justin Bieber and U.S.-based online video gamer Marikiplier saw more new subscribers to their respective channels in September 2015. And in August, the burgeoning online video force known as Rachel Levin (aka Rclbeauty101) amassed 702,000+ subscribers during the month to PewDiePie’s 609,000+.

Despite that sporadic competition and the fact his subscriber acquisition rate is down nearly 400% from its peak in March 2014 (when one new Bro subbed to the channel every 1.2 seconds), PewDiePie is in no immediate or distant future threat of losing his status as the Most Subscribed YouTube Channel of All Time. HolaSoyGerman is currently in the #2 spot, more than 15 million subscribers behind.

For the uninitiated, here’s a look at PewDiePie’s latest video. In this upload he isn’t playing a game, but acting out a scene from his own comedic, soap-opera-y drama YouTube High School where he voices the action of digital cutouts of popular YouTubers on stock photo backgrounds. 

If the above video leaves you scratching your head and makes you ask the question, “People actually watch this stuff?” you’re 1) obviously not in PewDiePie’s target demographic and 2) may enjoy his upcoming, more produced fare.

Kjellberg was one of a handful of YouTube stars that the online video sharing site announced will have exclusive programming on YouTube’s new subscription service. PewDiePie’s contribution to YouTube Red is Scare PewDiePie, a “reality-adventure series from the creator and executive producers of The Walking Dead at Skybound Entertainment and Maker Studios.” There’s no release date for the program just yet, but expect to see it sometime in 2016.

Filed under: Articles, News, PewDiePie, YouTube by Joshua Cohen
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The 2015 edition of the New York Television Festival (NYTVF) took place this past week in the Big Apple, and as per usual, the yearly event celebrated the best independent content creators from around the web. The Katering Show and The Parker Tribe earned “Best of the Fest” honors, and several other creators earned development deals from major production studios and TV networks.

The Katering Show, a culinary comedy previously nominated for a Streamy Award for Best Indie Series, received NYTVF’s Best Short-Form Digital Series award. The festival’s Critics Award went to The Parker Tribe, which follows the life of a young tomboy within a large Irish-Catholic family. In total, 12 awards were handed out; a full list of winners can be found here.

One of those awards went to The Other Kennedys, a comedy web series that caught our eye last week. James Coker and Marshall Stratton’s satire of the upper class, which premiered earlier this year, also received a development deal with Comedy Central. In total, more than 20 development deals were handed out at the annual festival; according to the NYTVF, it’s the fourth straight year in which the event has resulted in at least 20 deals.

“It’s an exciting time to love TV, create TV and develop TV – across all platforms – and this year’s Festival harnessed this excitement as fans, executives and independent artists celebrated this art form,” said NYTVF Founder and Executive Director Terence Gray in a press release. “We saw a real uptick across the board in the quality of submissions this year, resulting in strong engagement by industry decision-makers, and a record number of meetings taking place throughout the week between these partners and our Official Artists.”

In total, 50 projects were selected as finalists for the NYTVF’s Independent Pilot Competition. Information about all of those shows can be found on the festival’s website.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, New York Television Festival, News by Sam Gutelle
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