NBCUniversal (NBCU) has finally revealed more about its upcoming streaming video service. The entertainment giant and parent company to television network NBC has announced the SVOD service SeeSo will launch in the first quarter of 2016.
NBC originally announced plans for its comedy subscription service back in March 2015. At the time, no details were cemented in place. Now, NBCU has outlined far more of what SeeSo will entail. According to Variety, EVP of NBCU Digital Enterprises Evan Shapiro said the network will provide 10-15% of the service’s content for free to convince users to sign up for the $3.99-per-month platform.
Within its first year, SeeSo will also create about 20 original series, such as The UCB Show with Amy Poehler and a new animated series from Dan Harmon, creator of Community (which now somewhat ironically streams on Hulu after NBC cancelled the show). Shapiro said SeeSo will also contain daily standup specials and, at some point, live comedy specials. The new service will also stream about three-to-five movie titles per month, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
“The big niche we’re focusing on is comedy,” Shapiro said at an NBC press event announcing SeeSo. “It’s the most popular genre out there by a long stretch, by a Secretariat stretch.” The EVP also noted SeeSo’s goal is to complement the big streaming services like Hulu and Netflix, which aim to provide a variety of content for all audiences much like Shapiro said the broadcast networks “around 1978” tried to do.
SeeSo will be available on seeso.com, mobile devices, and over-the-top platforms as a private beta product in December 2016, with official launch set for January 2016. NBCU is also in talks with pay-TV providers to add SeeSo as an add-on service for cable subscribers.
Since its debut, the YouTube Gaming hub has been seen as YouTube’s challenge to Twitch’s domination of the video game live streaming market. Now, it is getting several new features, including a “Sponsorships” service that appears to be a clear answer to Twitch’s subscriptions.
YouTube Gaming Sponsorships are built on the video site’s existing Fan Funding platform, which was announced at VidCon in June 2014 and debuted in four countries three months later. For a monthly fee, sponsors gain access to exclusive perks like VIP chat windows and special badges. Sponsorships are currently available for only a few channels, but YouTube plans to roll out the feature site-wide in the future.
A similar subscription service has worked wonders for Twitch. Some streamers make thousands of dollars each month in subscription revenue, eclipsing their advertising revenue several times over in the process. As a result, it’s not uncommon to see streamers thank their subscribers with on-screen shout-outs and fan giveaways.
In addition to Sponsorships, the YouTube Gaming update brings several other new features. Chief among them is the launch of Mobile Capture (pictured above), which lets users stream directly from Android devices by pressing “Go Live” within the YouTube Gaming app. It’s a neat piece of technology and a boon for streamers who play popular titles like Clash of Clans.
Additional changes, including updates to search, subscriptions, and performance within the YouTube Gaming app, are documented within a blog post.
[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 weeklyTubefilter Chartof theTop 50 Most Viewed U.S. YouTube Channelsand one of America’s favorite pastimes remains in the top spot.
Chart Toppers
WWE isn’t letting go of its U.S. YouTube title belt. The online video home of all things World Wrestling Entertainment held onto the #1 spot on the chart this week, taking down nearly 96.3 million views. In a distant second is FunToyzCollector (aka the channel previously known as DisneyCollectorBR). The channel dedicated to videos of adults unboxing and playing with children’s toys stayed almost exactly constant with its view count, scoring nearly 83.4 million views on the week.
In third place is BuzzFeedVideo. The main YouTube home of the popular social website known for its hard news and listicles closed out the week with more than 77.5 million views. Up next in the #4 spot is Taylor Swift. The pop star’s massive YouTube viewership remains uninterrupted, tacking on almost 69.3 million views during the week.
And rounding out the Top 5 is DisneyCarToys. The other channel dedicated to videos of adults unboxing and playing with children’s toys towards the top of the chart closed out the week with more than 62.3 million views.
Top Gainers
The honor of one of our Top Gainers in the U.S. this week goes to FailArmy.
The YouTube channel powered by Jukin Media that’s home to epic viral video clips (that also get some airtime on TV) that depict exactly what the channel name implies had a great week on YouTube thanks to a steady supply of user-generated content. Videos like the Best Fails of the Week helped the channel to a 38% week-over-week increase in views, more than 21.9 million views on the week, and the #47 spot on the U.S. chart.
Channel Distribution
The top 50 most viewed U.S. YouTube channels this week amassed a total of 1,852,947,308 views. Here’s the distribution of a few of those channels by multi-channel network:
VEVO: 16 channels in the U.S. Top 50, with Taylor Swift the highest-ranked channel of the network at #4.
Maker Studios: 4 channels in the Top 50, with DisneyCarToys at #5.
Fullscreen: 3 channels in the Top 50, with
BuzzFeed, Movieclips, OhMyGenius: 2 channels each in the Top 50, with BuzzFeed’s BuzzFeed Video at #3, Movieclips‘ Movieclips Trailers at #21, and OhMyGenius’ Kids Channel at #32.
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.
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.
Despite the degree to which YouTube has changed over the first decade of its existence, there has always been room on the video site for some well-crafted user-generated content (UGC). UGC refers to the sort of videos you think of when you think “viral video:” hilarious “fails,” awe-inspiring “wins,” and all forms of cute animals and babies.
One of the kings of YouTube UGC is JukinVideo. It’s part of the Jukin Media family, and it features fully-licensed UGC videos in all their forms. It also comments on these viral clips through compilations and clip shows such as Top Five. JukinVideo is now over one million subscribers, so we talked to its on-camera host and the audience development manager, Ricardo Marquez, to get his thoughts on the world of UGC.
Tubefilter: How does it feel to have 1 million subscribers? What do you want to say to your fans?
JukinVideo: It’s a pretty indescribable feeling to see that huge M next to our subscriber count. We’re incredibly stoked to have such rad fans who come in each and every day to comment on whatever video we post. To those fans, I wanna say thank you for being amazing and chatting with me every single day in the comments. Wouldn’t be here without you.
TF: How did JukinVideo come to be? What was the thought process behind it?
JV: JukinVideo started off as a home to some of our favorite videos from the Jukin library. Early on we realized it could be much more than that, so we began to position the channel as THE place for the latest and greatest viral videos, along with a ton of other great content that’s maybe less well known. We wanted it to be a platform where UGC video owners would get exposure to a large audience that they otherwise would not have access to. We’re picky about what gets posted on the channel and our fans appreciate that we don’t just pump out clips every second of the day. We keep it very high quality by design.
TF: How do you find videos to include on JukinVideo? Are they submitted new or pulled from your library?
JV: The way we curate videos on JukinVideo is a combination of both. We can pull from the Jukin Media library which is full of hidden gems, and we have access to brand new videos that are on the cusp of going viral. We also get a ton of videos through submissions because people love to get featured on the channel. If anybody has a video, send it our way!
TF: How do you decide which clips to include in compilations or the monthly “best of” videos?
JV: It’s actually a fun and awesome process to go through when we build out our compilations. For our themed compilations, we’ll get in a room every month and pitch what theme we think our fans would love. From there, we then go into the JukinVideo library and find the very best clips from that theme. After we pool together a ton of clips, we’ll jokingly argue with each other and fight for our favorite clips we want in the compilation.
As for our Best of the Week/Month series, we get a ton of amazing clips in every day and we try to figure out what clips will be uploaded as single clips to the channel and which ones would do best in a compilation. Once that’s done, we have an incredible editing team that puts it together and work some magic on it to make it 100x times better. You can’t just string some clips together when you make a compilation, and our editors know that. It takes a little bit of skill and magic to get the flow right on a compilation.
TF: On a similar, what qualities make for a good user-generated viral clip?
JV: Well first off, please shoot horizontally. But honestly, what makes a good user-generated video is just striking some sort of emotion or connection with a viewer. I know that may sound incredibly cheesy and I’m sure this answer has been mentioned time and time again but it’s true. Most recently, we put up our Best Summer Ever compilation and seeing comments from fans was pretty hilarious to see. The compilation was filled with a lot of nostalgia moments and fans reacted to it. Some were really bummed about Summer ending but others were telling stories about what they did over the past few months. We struck some sort of emotional chord with fans but everyone was happy in the end and that’s what it is all about.
TF: What does the legal process look like when you acquire a clip and want to include it on your channel?
JV: This is a great question because there are a lot of YouTube channels and Facebook pages out there that post viral videos and compilations, but they don’t ever get permission from the owners of those videos. Our team gets a signed contract for every video that we post on the channel, and the original owners of those clips share in the revenue generated on the channel. Our team will contact the video owner and tell them about the company and JukinVideo and the potential to be featured on the channel. Our biggest goal is to make sure the video owner is happy and, so far, everyone seems to be thrilled.
TF: In your thank-you video to subscribers, you got a few of the original video owners to participate in the making of that clip. What was it like working with them?
JV: I actually got a little starstruck when I Skyped with them. I know that seems kinda weird but we pretty much live and breathe viral videos here so when we had the opportunity to talk with them, it was pretty exciting. I mean, it’s not every day you can talk to a dude who survived being kicked in the head by a passing train and got 40 million views on his video.
They were all great though and they were pretty happy to be featured on the One Million Subscribers compilation. If it wasn’t for their videos and other owners, who knows how much longer it would have taken to get to a million subs.
TF: Though viral content can’t always be predicted, what trend do you think would be fun to see posted on JukinVideo in 2016?
JV: We need more of those “Oh crap. The whole world is doing this” type videos. We had the Harlem Shake. The Ice Bucket Challenge was rad. “WHAT ARE THOSEEE” kinda popped up for a bit. Something along those lines.
TF: What’s next for your channel? Anything fun?
JV: We’re always having fun over here! I would love to start a second channel to have some hosted stuff on their or have it be just a playground to get a bit weird with our videos. Also, we’re prepping for our Top 100 Videos of the Year series and that’s taking up a lot of our time to make sure it’s even bigger and better than last year. So be on the lookout for that!
Al Roker may not be the first individual that comes to mind when you think about stars on emerging online video platforms. But the most famous meteorologist in the world and established entertainment personality with a household name after more than 40 years in the television business may soon be the first celebrity you talk about when the the topic of conversation turns to new forms of digital entertainment.
The Today Show host and his production company Al Roker Entertainment have recently expanded their focus. Instead of creating and producing television properties and branded entertainment, the man and his company have expanded their focus to include a solid amount of experimentation with and development of digital content. What started with Roker using live streaming apps Periscope and Meerkat to film behind-the-scenes snippets for the Today Show has evolved into Roker Labs, a physical studio space in Manhattan for digital and live streaming productions. The famous weatherman also recently launched a mobile show on the Weather Channel’s app.
Because of all these digital initiatives, Roker was chosen to headline Stream Con NYC‘s 2015 slate of industry speakers. Here’s what the live streaming pioneer had to say about his and his company’s goals for staying up-to-date with digital content and embracing the future of the industry.
Tubefilter: Last time we talked to you, you said your entertainment company was working on new content for digital media platforms. Now, you’ve got a mobile-first show with the Weather Channel. How did that deal develop?
Al Roker: It’s something that has been in the works for awhile. It makes sense for people to get their news on their mobile devices and I like to compare it to instead of a sit down breakfast it’s more of a meal-on-the-go.
TF: We know you’re a big fan of live streaming. What is one show or type of content you’d love to create for a live streaming platform?
AR: We’ve been focused on testing live stream programming across a number of platforms. The food and beverage segment is one we really like because of our traditional TV and branded entertainment experience. It’s also fun, and everyone knows I like to eat! We are continuing to develop new shows on a weekly basis and have been creating alongside a number of terrific brands, talented chefs, bloggers, and producers.
TF: How did you make a name for yourself in the live streaming industry so quickly, especially considering you come from traditional media and younger audiences may not be familiar with you?
AR: That’s nice to hear. I love technology and gadgets and I’ve been taking selfies during celebrity interviews before they were even called ‘selfies.’ I’m always on the go and live by my phone.
When we heard about live streaming it immediately sparked some ideas and our team partnered with a number of leading companies in data and technical show development to quickly get our own productions live. The reason was simple: the concept of live streaming on the consumer platforms like Periscope, Meerkat, and others is so new, that we knew we had to develop our own in-house expertise. There were few folks or companies that had ever done it before as we had on traditional TV. We thought that was an advantage for Roker Labs. So we took the lead and have made a concerted effort to develop our own data research, talent outreach, and stream development. I will add that we’ve shared our key learnings with others.
TF: Are you interested in tapping any online video and social media stars for future Al Roker Entertainment productions?
AR: Of course. We’re in daily touch with current video and stream stars especially in the food category. We welcome all inquiries. The idea behind Roker Labs was to partner with aspiring talent and smart brands who see the opportunity with streaming and that seems to be happening. We also have some announcements coming up with some live shows we are developing for celebrities.
TF: From your seat at the Today Show and your other broadcast programs, you have an incredible vantage point on the entertainment industry. How fast is it really changing and what’s changing it the fastest? YouTube and social media stars? Technology? Or something else?
AR: I think it’s all changing and it’s happening fast. Maybe too fast but it’s exciting to be part of it and see technology evolve. You have Netflix winning Emmys for their original productions and now social media stars have agents and making more money than most in a life time. Live streaming is exciting and where we are focusing most of our efforts. The power of live streaming makes everyone their own production company and TV station. I do have an advantage hearing and learning about things early on due to being an on-air news personality but sometimes it’s everyone’s best guess. Right now the hot thing is Instagram, Snapchat, and live streaming and in a few months there could be something new altogether.
When Netflix reports on its quarterly earnings, it can usually brag that it has hit the growth benchmarks previously set as its three-month goals. In Q3 2015, however, the streaming video on-demand platforms numbers ended up lower than it expected. Despite the fact that Netflix brought in 3.6 million new subscribers between July 1st and September 30th, it fell short of its US subscriber acquisition target by 270,000 people.
Netflix said it would add 1.15 million new US subscribers in Q3, but its actual total was 880,000. In their latest earnings letter, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wellsattributed the lower-than-expected subscriber totals to “slightly higher-than-expected involuntary churn (inability to collect), which we believe was driven in part by the ongoing transition to chip-based credit and debit cards.” That reasoning didn’t seem to satisfy all of the company’s investors, as Netflix stock fell 14% during after-hours trading on October 14th.
Another possible explanation for the dip is the lack of big-name original series releases Netflix touted in Q3. The company had previously credited original programming as a significant part of its growth, but the two most prominent Netflix originals–House of Cards and Orange is the New Black–were both dormant during the most recent quarter.
While Netflix believes it will finish 2015 “at about 2014 levels,” there are a few upcoming changes that could hinder the company’s growth during Q4. The loss of movies from Epix, which has moved its catalog to Hulu instead, could drive away some subscribers, though Hastings and Wells wrote that they’ve “seen no material reduction in U.S. feature film viewing as we have so many other films for members to enjoy.” Recent price hikes could also scare off new customers; the standard Netflix service now costs $9.99, up from $8.99.
No matter what’s on the horizon for Netflix, the company’s execs seem confident about its future. Clearly, Bill Murray will make sure all their problems go away.
Connor Franta and Anna Akana are taking their creative digital talents ino the real world. The two YouTube stars, who collectively boast 6.1 million subscribers across both their channels, teamed with art education school The Art Institutes to captain teams for the school’s live streamed “Uncontainable” student art competition in Austin, Texas.
The Art Institutes’ 12-hour competition consists of two teams of four students, who boast their own artistic expertise in a variety of areas (like video production or media art) and hail from one of The Art Institutes’ 50 U.S. establishments. Franta’s #AiWest team of students will compete against Akana’s #AiEast team to turn a plain, large shipping container into a work of art by any tools or means necessary. Franta and Akana’s teams will be judged (presumably by the powers that be at The Art Institutes) based on factors like creativity and execution. The “Uncontainable” competition will be live streamed starting at 12 PM CST on October 16 via aiuncontainable.com.
“Uncontainable” is part of a larger project by The Art Institutes. The art school is partnering with AdoptAClassroom.org, a non-profit which aids teachers in purchasing classroom supplies. The Art Institutes will help support students and teachers directly through AdoptAClassroom.org, as well as through local Austin public schools.
“This live competition allows our students from around the nation to come together and create something beautiful in a unique way,” said Tim Moscato, Chief Operating Officer of The Art Institutes, in a release. “This first-of-its-kind event will show that creativity cannot be contained, and can be expressed through many different mediums.” You can learn more about the “Uncontainable” art competition and live stream on the event’s official site. You can also check out Franta and Akana’s vlogs about the competition below:
Welcome to the Fund This column! Each week, we’ll look at a planned web series or other online video project currently in search of funding on crowdfunding sites. We’ll tell you what the series is all about and explain why it is worth your money. Do you have a project that’s currently being crowdfunded? Contact us to let us know and we may feature it in upcoming installments and check out previous installments righthere.
Description: What happens when a “straight(ish)” actor decides to enter the world of drag? That simple question will be answered in Life’s a Drag, an upcoming series currently searching for funds on Indiegogo.
The creator of Life’s a Drag is Ian Verdun, who also stars as Mel, the show’s frazzled protagonist. Mel, like many other leading me from web series we profile, is a struggling actor looking to find his footing. Unlike those other precocious leads, however, Mel winds up in the world of drag, where he must fit into a world filled with colorful characters. I’m not ready to call it “Magic Mike meets drag,” but the log line certainly gives off that impression.
Life’s a Drag, however, will also look to provide a coming-of-age story that resonates within the LGBT community and inspires its viewers. “There’s so many voices that aren’t heard,” says Verdun in his pitch video, “there’s so many stories that aren’t told, and I’m just sick and tired of being told that those stories don’t have value.”
Creator Bio: The cast and crew of Life’s a Drag are an experienced bunch with credits across Orange is the New Black, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, MTV’s Todrick, and several other shows. Verdun, for example, has appeared on ABC’s Last Resort and TNT’s Hawthorne.
Best Perk: As you might expect, the Life’s a Drag perk list is filled with all sorts of appropriate rewards. For $75, you can receive a digital poster that frames you as “the next drag superstar.” For bigger spenders, $1,000 gets you a full drag makeover.
Why You Should Fund It: The strongest Indiegogo campaigns are the ones that include previously-produced episodes, because if those episodes are good, we can trust the creative team to make more of the same. Life’s a Drag has already filmed its pilot, and the first nine minutes of that pilot have been included within the project’s Indiegogo page.
After watching this video, it is easy to trust the Life’s a Drag team. Despite its small budget, it looks and sounds professional, and its actors show off their chops. The script does a good job of blending personal drama with witty comedy, and the plot begins to hint at the fish-out-of-water story we have been promised. All in all, Life’s a Drag looks good–and if you check it out, you’re bound to agree. When you combine the quality of the pilot with Verdun’s appeal to under-served voices, you wind up with an intriguing crowdfunding project.
Got a crowdfunding campaign you’d like to see featured in Fund This? Be sure to contact us here.
GoPro has a new way to build its collection of video clips while rewarding creators for their Go-Pro-shot content. The action camera manufacturer has launched the GoPro Awards program and will give out up to $5 million dollars per year to lucky, creative, and/or talented video and photo makers.
The GoPro Awards program encourages consumers to film with a GoPro and then submit their photos, raw video, and edited clips for possible inclusion in the GoPro Channel (the company’s relatively new brand licensing platform). Creators can submit content in a variety of categories, including animals, motorsports, music, travel, and action. A release says GoPro will select “content that emotionally engages, amazes, or excites.” The action camera brand will then pay the creators of those selections $500 for photos, $1000 for raw video, and $5,000 for edited clips across all categories, capping distributed awards at $5 million annually.
GoPro’s SVP of Entertainment Zander Lurie told Adweek the GoPro Awards initiative is not a “contest or a gimmick — it’s an ongoing campaign” with no current end in sight. “This has been a concept that our CEO [Nick Woodman] and the whole team has wanted to do for a long time,” explained Lurie. “It really [underscores] how valuable the GoPro community has been to our success.”
“Our customers are some of the most creative people on the planet. A key component of our programming strategy is user generated content,” Woodman added. “GoPro Awards creates exciting opportunities for our customers. Whether it’s helping them monetize their content in the form of financial rewards, helping to license their content to other businesses, or helping them get more exposure through our global social and media distribution channels, we’re dedicated to sharing with our community. We believe this program enables our customers to further pursue their passions.”
You can learn more about the GoPro Awards program and submit your own video content by visiting gopro.com/awards.
W/ Bob and Davidisn’t the only Netflix comedy program with an imminent premiere date. The streaming video on-demand platform has released a preview for A Very Murray Christmas, the Bill Murray Christmas special that will arrive on December 4th.
A Very Murray Christmas, which Netflix first announced in May, will feature the famously mercurial Murray as its host. Sofia Coppola, known for directing Murray in the acclaimed 2003 film Lost in Translation, will direct the special, with Coppola, Murray, andMitch Glazer writing it. Netflix’s new preview shows off a number of the well-known actors who will join Murray’s Yuletide presentation, including George Clooney, Chris Rock, and Amy Poehler.
The preview’s description provides more information for potential viewers:
“This winter, Bill Murray brings an extra-special dose of holiday cheer to Netflix with the premiere of an all-star musically-driven holiday special, A Very Murray Christmas. Set inside New York City’s iconic Carlyle hotel, A Very Murray Christmas opens with Murray preparing to host a live, international holiday broadcast. After a blizzard shuts down the production, he makes the best of the situation by singing and celebrating with friends, hotel employees and anyone else who drops by.”
Given the selectivity with which Murray chooses his projects, we certainly have high hopes for his Christmas special. It will be a real treat for his fans, and, we can only imagine, a worthwhile addition to a lazy December day.
Millward Brown has some new information on how much time people spend watching online video versus television. In its “AdReaction: Video Creative in a Digital World” study, the research firm discovered consumers are watching just as much online video content as they are TV.
Millward Brown polled roughly 13,500 viewers across 42 different countries who own multiple screens (like a television in addition to a smartphone or tablet). Millward Brown discovered consumers between the ages of 16 and 45 watch an average of 204 minutes of content a day, with half of that time going to television and half going to online video. The survey respondents who watched online video split that time between smartphones (45 minutes a day), desktop computers (37 minutes per day), and tablets (20 minutes each day).
Despite the good news Millward Brown’s survey might hold for believers in cord-cutting, the research firm also found online video consumers are picky about the ads they’re served. Of all the survey respondents, only 19% of those who watched online video responded favorably to ads compared to 27% of TV viewers. Mobile users are the least forgiving when it comes to ads, with 49% of them disliking ads on their video content.
However, Millward Brown’s study showed 63% of online video viewers would be more open to ads if they could control the ads they see. Additionally, 41% of respondents responded favorably to ads tailored to their interests, and 31% were fine with skippable mobile pre-roll ads. As more and more watchable content moves to digital and mobile platforms, these ad statistics are definitely something video publishers, brands, and marketers need to keep in mind.
“While video is now available on myriad screens, applying TV thinking to digital content and placement is simply not acceptable, and consumers expect more from online advertisers,” said Duncan Southgate, Millward Brown’s Global Brand Director for Digital, in a release. “By exploring behaviors and preferences related to screens and advertising, ‘AdReaction Video’ provides a roadmap to help marketers build effective media plans and creative approaches that target the right people in the right context with the right content.”
On October 13th, YouTube held its annual UK Brandcast in London. The advertising event, which runs parallel to the American Brandcast that occurs during each year’s Newfronts, featured presentations from YouTube’s executives, content creators, and brand partners. The most interesting sound bite came from Eileen Naughton, Google’s Managing Director UK & Ireland Operations. Naughton implored advertisers to spend at least 24% of their TV budgets on YouTube if they want to reach the video site’s prominent 16-34 demographic.
Much of YouTube’s UK Brandcast pitch hit on points the site has brought up at past presentations: Its unbeatable appeal to teens and young adults, the success of its Google Preferred program, and its increasing presence on mobile devices. With the 24% suggestion, YouTube added at specific benchmark at which brands can best connect with online video viewers. According to Naughton, that is the percentage at which “cost-per-reach” is fully optimized for campaigns that target the 16-34 demographic. “Advertisers reach target audiences far more efficiently by adding YouTube to their media plans,” she said.
The UK Brandcast also hit on the rising trend of YouTube stars as published authors. It’s an apropos topic for a British presentation, since London-based beauty star Zoella was one of the first YouTube celebrities to land her own book deal with a major publishing house. Grace Helbig, who presented to the close-to-1000-person crowd, said that more than 20 YouTubers have released books in the past year.
At the same time, Helbig was quick to remind attendees that, in spite of her off-YouTube activities, her channel is still her most significant venture. “My YouTube community is my core,” she said. “It’s the space that has allowed me to grow in a creative, collaborative and personal way.”
