The Weather Channel has a new way to help mobile users get weather news as soon as they wake up. On October 15, 2015, the cable TV channel and forecast news brand will release a mobile-only morning news show called The Lift, hosted by NBC anchor Al Roker.

Available exclusively via The Weather Channel mobile application’s home screen, The Lift will air between 6-11 AM local time and will feature up to eight pieces of daily, informative videos about weather news, science and nature stories, and trending video content. Roker will report from New York, while the rest of The Lift, co-hosted by meteorologists Domenica Davis and Ari Sarsalari, will be filmed in a new mobile-first studio at The Weather Channel’s Atlanta headquarters.

According to a release, The Weather Channel pulled in 1.2 billion video views across all its digital outlets in 2014. Roughly 40% of those views stemmed from mobile devices alone. On a daily basis, the weather forecast company sees 19 million users access content on its mobile platforms, with a notable 35% increase in traffic during the morning hours.

Neil Katz, The Weather Company’s VP and Editor-in-Chief of Digital, explained how The Lift will help the brand’s mobile app users plan their days around the most important news. “Knowing traffic spikes during morning hours, it was a natural next step for us to experiment with a mobile morning show and create video content for users who are already using the Weather app in their morning routine,” said Katz. “Al’s curiosity and interest in innovative new broadcast formats makes him the ideal person to help lead our efforts on this groundbreaking morning show.”

“Change is necessary to remain relevant in a world fueled by technology advancements and always on-the-go,” added Roker. “Being part of a mobile based morning show makes total sense and now you can get your weather from me the second you roll out of bed or even in bed.”  

You can catch episodes of The Lift each day starting October 15 on The Weather Channel app, available from the iTunes App store or Google Play.

Filed under: Articles, News, The Weather Channel by Bree Brouwer
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Each month, the YouTube Ad Leaderboard reveals the ten branded videos released that month that have received the most views. The September 2015 Leaderboard was most an uneventful one, filled with the usual array of innovative tech demos, celebrity-driven commercials, and tentpole tie-ins. There was, however, at least one interest coincidence within the top ten: Both Honda and Google cracked the list with ads that refer to their respective histories.

Google’s contribution to the Ad Leaderboard finished second by rolling up more than nine million views in September. It shows off the ways Google’s design has evolved throughout the years and touts the various innovations that have come out of Mountain View. It ends with a call to the future, with a Google exec saying “this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Honda’s Ad Leaderboard entrant is eerily similar to Google’s, at least in terms of its content. It’s a collaboration with animator PES that runs through the 66 years of the automotive brand’s history. While its stop-motion style is wildly different from the look of Google’s ad, it also ends by looking forward to the future:  “You never know where a dream will lead you,” reads its final line.

Will this “evolution” format become a staple of branded video advertising? These two videos certainly turned in strong results, but neither of them were the coolest video from the September Ad Leaderboard. That distinction goes to a brilliant “prankvertisement” engineered by New Zealand’s Energy Online:

Here, courtesy of Google, is the full list:

1. FIFA 16 – Play Beautiful – Official TV Commercial, 10M views

2. Google, evolved, 9M views

3. H&M Close the Loop – Sustainable fashion through recycled clothes, 8.2M views

4. Samsung Mobile: It’s Not a Phone, It’s a Galaxy: Wireless Charging, 7.5M views

5. iPhone 6s – The Only Thing That’s Changed Is…, 5.5M views

6. Honda “Paper”, 4.3M views

7. Energy Online NZ: Door knocking is so last century. See how we got rid of them., 3.9M views

8. BB-8 App-Enabled Droid || Built by Sphero, 2.7M views

9. Quiznos: Burn Trials- Out of the Maze and onto the Playa, 2.6M views

10. iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus – Reveal, 2M views

Filed under: 7 Minutes in Heaven, Articles, Featured, News, YouTube Ad Leaderboard by Sam Gutelle
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Crackle’s newest original show and its first-ever stop-motion animated series is here. Sony’s streaming video platform released the first three episodes of SuperMansion on October 8, 2015.

Previously announced at Crackle’s Newfronts presentation, SuperMansion stars Bryan Cranston (of Breaking Bad fame) as the voice of Titanium Rex, the leader of a group of disparate superheroes dubbed the League of Freedom. Titanium Rex must learn to get along with apathetic, millennial-aged League members as the team tries to fight off villains and make a name for itself in what a release calls “a world overcome with heroes.” SuperMansion also stars the voice talents of Seth Green (Family Guy), Keegan-Michael Key (Key and Peele), Jillian Bell (Workaholics), and Chris Pine (Star Trek).

Each 22-minute episode of SuperMansion comes to Crackle by way of Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, the animation studio co-founded by Green that’s behind the popular stop-motion series Robot Chicken on Adult Swim. Cranston and Green serve as executive producers alongside Eric Towner, John Harvatine, James Degus, and Robot Chicken’s Matthew Senreich and Zeb Wells. Senreich and Wells also created and co-wrote SuperMansion.

You can watch SuperMansion on any streaming device which supports the Crackle app. The series is also available online at crackle.com/SuperMansion. New episodes of SuperMansion will be available every Thursday through December 17.

Filed under: Articles, Crackle, News by Bree Brouwer
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Video publishers on Twitter can expect to see more ad revenue headed their way. The social media site held its #VideoNow NYC event on October 8, 2015 and announced the expanded Twitter Amplify program, which will allow advertisers to run video ads against related video content from Twitter publishers.

Amplify, which launched back in May of 2013, originally helped content partners and publishers (such as ESPN, NBA, Ford, A&E, and Vice) publish in-tweet videos and push them out the public via the social site. However, according to Variety, none of these publishers could run pre-roll or post-roll video ads on these Amplify-based video tweets unless they previously had deals set up with an advertiser. Marketers interested in placing video ads on Twitter had to go directly through the social site’s content partners and not Twitter itself.

Now, under the expanded Amplify program, Twitter has opened up the ability for all its publishers and content partners to monetize their video content with six-second pre-roll ads through Twitter’s ad-buying and targeting technology. Publishers can opt-in to the program with the click of a button in their settings, while advertisers can select the type of content and demographic they want their ads to run against. Twitter then places these ads in real time on matching content from publishers. The social site said more than 50 brands like BuzzFeed and Fullscreen have joined Amplify to beta-test the updated service.

“Twitter video is now open for business,” said Twitter’s Senior Product Director of Media, TV, and Video Baljeet Singh. “Because it’s unfolding in the moment, you’re reaching users as they’re seeing the video in real time.”

Baljeet Singh shares the latest on Twitter Amplify: http://t.co/Ip0Q8PzuKg

— Twitter Advertising (@TwitterAds) October 8, 2015

Variety notes Twitter did not reveal ad revenue numbers or splits with the audience at the #VideoNOW event. However, sources close to Twitter’s plans claim the micro-blogging platform will give content partners 70% of all ad revenue. This generous revenue share figure matches the one Vessel offers its video content partners, and exceeds the ad revenue program from both YouTube (rumored to be 45%) and Facebook (which only just started to give 55% of ad sales to a select group of publishers)

The new Twitter Amplify service is currently only available to publishers in the U.S., but the social site said it will expand the offering to more countries in the future. You can learn more about the Amplify video ad service at video.twitter.com.

Filed under: Articles, News, Twitter by Bree Brouwer
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As we’ve noted before, the quality of a thumbnail image can make or break the success of the video it’s attached to. Creating thumbnails is an intricate art, but it’s not so intricate that a computer can’t do it properly. In a blog post, Google’s research team explained how it is using machine learning to automatically generate proper thumbnails.

YouTube has always been able to automatically generate thumbnails for videos uploaded to the site, but those thumbnails were simply fetched from a point toward the center of the video. Therefore, many videos have received blurry, out-of-focus, and irrelevant thumbnails.

The new “thumbnailer” is much more accurate. It uses the custom thumbnails created by YouTube video uploaders as its database, and it employs the data it gleans from those custom thumbnails to pick out the most thumbnail-friendly points within new videos. It then converts those stills to a thumbnail-friendly resolution. In the image above, you can see how the new thumbnailer’s chosen images compare to the ones generated by Google’s previous system.

Viewers have noticed the improvement. Google’s post cites a study in which human respondents preferred the new thumbnails 65% of the time. That’s not perfect, but for an automatic service that runs adjacent to the custom thumbnail uploader, it’s pretty good.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, YouTube by Sam Gutelle
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Just days after it announced an expansion into Europe led by former YouTube exec Denis Crushell, Tubular Labs has announced another significant hire. It has tapped former Quantcast exec Michael Kamprath as its first-ever Chief Technology Officer.

In his new role, Kamprath will help Tubular’s quest to crunch numbers across YouTube and other online video platforms. Since its launch in 2013, Tubular has debuted several new technologies beyond its proprietary video analytics service; specifically, in 2014, it rolled out Tubular Intelligence, a tool that helps brands collaborate with digital content creators.

“We are thrilled to have Michael join our company,” said Rob Gabel, Founder and CEO of Tubular Labs, in a press release. “His experience growing engineering teams from just a handful of employees to over 100 people and his deep expertise in the data measurement and analytics space will be invaluable in taking Tubular to the next level.”

Gabel isn’t kidding when he talks about his new employee’s deep expertise; Kamprath is a real smarty. He has two Aerospace Engineering degrees, and he is a former Air Force officer. Something tells me he knows a thing or two about numbers.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Tubular Labs by Sam Gutelle
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On the first day of October, YouTube introduced several changes to its YouTube Kids app, which it had initially launched in February 2015. Among other new features, YouTube announced its plan to instruct parents, as soon as they turn on the app, about the process for flagging inappropriate videos.

At the time, we hailed this as a positive change for YouTube Kids, but a Senator who previously questioned the app believes more needs to be done. Bill Nelson (D-FL) recently took the Senate floor to discuss YouTube Kids, and he called YouTube’s recent updates “steps in the right direction, but it’s not enough.”

Nelson and the children’s advocacy groups allied with him are primarily concerned with two issues related to YouTube Kids. One is the availability of branded videos on the app, which the advocacy groups believe are “deceptive and unfair.” YouTube’s new update didn’t address this point specifically, and this particular disagreement seems to stem from a difference of opinion regarding what constitutes an “advertisement.” While the advocacy groups consider, say, a branded toy review to be an advertisement, YouTube seems to label it differently.

Shortly after the update was announced, one of the advocacy groups–the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood–wrote an open letter expressing dissatisfaction with the changes, saying “ Google’s changes to YTK are designed to allow Google to escape responsibility for allowing advertisers to use deceptive and unfair practices in marketing to the youngest children.”

CCFC’s open letter did not devote much ink, however, to the main issue Senator Nelson discussed when he took the floor. This second issue is one YouTube’s update did address, and it has emerged as a much more complicated conversation than the distinction between branded videos and ads. It’s an argument over the degree to which YouTube is responsible for purging inappropriate videos from its Kids app.

The CCFC and another advocacy group brought up the presence of adult-themed videos in May 2015, when they said YouTube had “failed” to provide age-appropriate content on YouTube Kids. Nelson echoed the concerns of the advocacy groups when he wrote a letter to Google one month later. At the time, YouTube reminded Nelson and co. that parents can always flag inappropriate videos they find on the app. Through the new update, YouTube made sure parents learn about this option as soon as they turn on the app.

For Nelson, though, that is not sufficient. On the Senate floor, he shared a number of inappropriate videos he found on the app, such as Howcast’s “How to open a beer with another beer.” He asserted that YouTube must take more responsibility when it comes to expunging these videos. “If there’s a privilege of doing an app like this, then there must be accountability,” he said. “And Google must accept that responsibility to be accountable.”

This YouTube Kids kerfuffle is essentially an extension of a problem that has dogged YouTube since its inception. With so much content uploaded every minute, it is impossible for YouTube to manually moderate its library. For that reason, it has created systems like Content ID and the YouTube Kids’ video reporting system, which can quickly recognize and strike down inappropriate or illegal videos. YouTube’s solution hasn’t been perfect, though. It has, at times, alienated media companies, content creators, and, yes, US Senators.

Those who agree with Nelson’s point of view must admit that, for YouTube to police its Kids app beyond its current system, it would have to completely curate the video selection and allow no unverified uploads. That might please Nelson, but it would go against YouTube’s appeal as a place where anyone, no matter how big or small, can be noticed. Perhaps legal action will force YouTube’s hand, but unless the debate gets to that point, don’t expect YouTube to give in to all the concessions Nelson is seeking.

For more information, head over to TechCrunch, where YouTube’s response to Nelson’s original letter has been posted in full.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, YouTube, YouTube Kids by Sam Gutelle
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There are a lot of channels on YouTube that claim to offer full movies for free. The catch, usually, is that these channels are not endorsed by film studios, and as a result, they rarely last very long before getting struck down by copyright claims.

The Paramount Vault, however, is different. It’s a YouTube channel that offers full movies for free, and unlike the other channels of its ilk, it is actually run by its titular studio. Head over to the Vault, and you’ll find more than 100 classic movies from the Paramount back catalog, all available for free.

The Paramount Vault has been around since the beginning of 2015, but it has only recently started to receive attention from media outlets. One of those outlets, Slashgear, has confirmed that the channel is fully endorsed by Paramount, though it is only available in the US.

So what kind of films will you find in the Vault? Unless you’re a big-time film buff, you probably won’t recognize most of the films. Paramount has reached decades back to pull out some old-school titles that span all genres. I’m sure a lot of the films don’t hold up when subjected to modern scrutiny, but there are also intriguing options, such as Bound, The Wachowskis’ directorial debut.

Beyond these full films, the Paramount Vault also offers individual clips from the studio’s more famous productions, and this is where the channel’s strategy starts to take shape. A famous clip from Sunset Boulevard, for example, is preceded by a still image that repurposes the film’s most famous line. “I’m ready for my selfie,” it reads.

An industrious Internet user could theoretically screencap the still image and proliferate it as an Internet meme. I’m not sure if anyone will do that–after all, the idea of repurposing a legendary line as a crack about selfies is a little low–but if any of these clips go viral, it would be a win for Paramount.

The same can be said for the full films Paramount has made available within the Vault. Sure, the selection isn’t tremendously exciting, but these films would otherwise spend their time collecting dust. Why not put them on YouTube? Kudos to Paramount for provide a plethora of free entertainment.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Studios by Sam Gutelle
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FailArmy is ready to release a new clip series aimed at making mobile viewers laugh and wince at the same time. The comedy brand owned by video licensing company Jukin Media will launch the series FailFive on Verizon’s mobile-first, free go90 video service.

Each of FailFive’s 50 three-minute episodes will consist of five user-generated videos surrounding a specific theme and complemented with what a release calls “meme-style graphics.” Chris Powers and Courtney Pauroso, stars of FailArmy’s current Top Fails Breakdown, will host the new go90 mobile series. Jukin’s FailArmy will release a new episode of FailFive every week on go90, where it will be available exclusively for 48 hours before launching on the FailArmy Facebook page. go90 will also run FailArmy’s regular content slate alongside FailFive.

“FailFive is a new hosted format that we have been developing off of our hugely successful FailArmy brand,” said Cameron Saless, Chief Growth Officer of Jukin Media, in a release. “We are incredibly excited to partner with Verizon to bring it to market on multiple platforms starting with go90.”

FailFive will join a burgeoning library of mobile programming Verizon has picked up from various digital media brands for distribution on go90. The mobile video service originally teamed with AwesomenessTV and DreamWorksTV for original content, and later turned to Vice and Machinima for more programming, as well. The most recent digital player to create content for go90 is New Form Digital, which will develop six original series for Verizon’s mobile video platform.

FailArmy currently boasts over 8.6 million subscribers and nearly two billion video views on its YouTube channel.

Filed under: Articles, Branded Entertainment, Channels, News, Studios by Bree Brouwer
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In 2014, Vimeo announced that High Maintenance, a smoky web series regarded as one of the Internet’s best, would be the platform’s first ever original series. Vimeo agreed to finance six new episodes of High Maintenance and delivered on that promise a few months later.

Now, a year on from the start of its original programming experiment, Vimeo is taking a huge step forward. It has announced its first ever “slate” of originals, one that includes a new season of acclaimed indie series The Outs, a short film called Darby Forever from Saturday Night Live cast member Aidy Bryant, and a stand-up special starring acerbic drag queen Bianca Del Rio. These shows will all premiere on Vimeo On Demand, Vimeo’s pay-to-view platform.

The three projects in Vimeo’s new originals slate took very different paths to get there. The Outs, like High Maintenance, got its start as an exemplary indie web series (one that happened to use the Vimeo player). Creator Adam Goldman has helmed several well-received projects, and his Outs co-writer, Sasha Winters, recently won the Streamy Award for Best Indie Series for her show Eat Our Feelings.

The other two projects, meanwhile, come from creators who first established themselves on TV. Bryant became a household name when she joined SNL for its 38th season, while Del Rio gained fame as a the season six champion of the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Despite disparate backgrounds, these creators are now united on Vimeo, which will fund all of its new programming. None of the projects have confirmed release dates, though they are all expected to arrive this coming winter, providing some enticing options for viewers who want to bundle up and “Vimeo and chill.”

While the three new projects make up the first “round” of original Vimeo programming, there will be more to follow. A Vimeo rep explained the platform’s plans in an email to Tubefilter:

“We plan to increase spend next year on Original Programming, but still very much focused on finding the right project that propel online storytelling and entertainment to new levels of quality. Our voice is a direct reflection of the creators we’re able to empower with the creative freedom granted with no interruptive advertising. This first slate skews more towards drama and comedy, but we will continue to curate and invest in a mix of genres popular across the Vimeo creator community — including Documentary, Action Sports, Sci-Fi, Animation, and more.”

What we don’t know is how much money Vimeo is spending on its new projects. The platform’s rep declined to offer financial specifics related to the upcoming programs.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Sam Gutelle
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[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a new 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 timeframe. You can check out all of our Tubefilter Charts – with new installments every week – right here.] 

Scroll down for the Tubefilter Chart.

It’s another installment of the Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Worldwide and an international pop star is in the very top spot.

Chart Toppersi

For the second month running, PewDiePie is not in first place on the Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Chart. That honor now belongs to a 21-year-old pop star. Justin Bieber had a very good month on the world’s largest video-sharing site thanks to the release of his first music video in over seven months. What Do You Mean? quickly racked up a nine-figure view count and attracted a lot of new fans to the Biebs’ YouTube channel. It ended the month with more than 736,000 new subscribers.

In second place is Markiplier. The YouTube gamer who hails from the United States beat out his international peers, scoring more than 613,000 new subscribers in the 30 days of September. Next up in the #3 spot is PewDiePie. The twentysomething Swedish gamer (who recently made his broadcast television debut via Stephen Colbert) stayed relatively constant in his subscriber acquisition rate, adding nearly 592,000 new members to his Bro Army. Up next in fourth place is another international pop star. Taylor Swift‘s YouTube channel continues to add subscribers at a steady clip, tacking on an additional 565,000 new subs during the month.

And rounding out the Top 5 is elrubiusOMG. The Spanish gamer’s subscriber rate took a 13% hit in September, but his channel was still able to claim an additional 502,000 new subscribers by the end of the month.

Top Gainers

The honor of one of our our Top Gainers this month goes to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Stephen Colbert’s eponymous late night talk show on CBS made its television debut on September 8, 2015 to some steady and solid TV ratings. Its numbers on YouTube aren’t too bad, either. The Late Show‘s channel on the site saw a predictable, but still impressive spike in its subscriber acquisition rate in the month of its broadcast television premiere with a 2,341% month-over-month increase in new subs, claiming the #24 spot on the chart. Colbert’s new home on YouTube also amassed more than 55 million views in the month.

Channel Distribution

The Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube channels in the month amassed in aggregate a total of 27,046,824 new subscribers. Here’s a look at the distribution of a few of those channels broken down by the most-represented YouTube Multi-Channel Networks on the chart:

• VEVO: 17 channels in the Top 100 Most Subscribed, with Justin Bieber the top channel in the network at #1.
• Collective Digital Studio: 11 channels in the Top 100, with IISuperwomanII at #12.
• Maker Studios: 10 channels in the Top 100, with PewDiePie at #3.
• BroadbandTV: 7 channels in the the Top 100, with fernanfloo at #6.
• Fullscreen, Machinima: 4 channels each in the Top 100, with Machinima’s HolaSoyGerman at #8 and Fullscreen’s MyLifeAsEva at #11.
• XMediaDigital: 3 channels in the Top 100, with mashamedvedtv at #75.
• Divimove, WMG: 2 channels each in the Top 100, with Divimove’s elrubiusOMG at #5 and WMG’s Matt Steffanina at #59.

And here’s a look into the distribution of the this month’s Top 100 by country of origin:

• The United States: 47 channels in the Top 100.
• Brazil, Great Britain: 10 channels each in the Top 100.
• Canada, Spain: 6 channels each in the Top 100.
• Russia: 3 channels in the Top 100.
• Chile, Denmark, India, Netherlands, Sweden: 2 channels each in the Top 100.
• Colombia, El Salvador, Ireland, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Thailand, Ukraine: 1 channel each in the Top 100.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all of our news at Tubefilter by 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 225,000 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, Matthew Santoro, News, statistics, Statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Joshua Cohen
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Endemol Beyond USA has a new content vertical for audiences to enjoy. The YouTube multi-channel network has officially launched SMASHER, its network dedicated to everything gaming, eSports, and even regular sports.

SMASHER launches alongside of the network’s first and previously-announced digital series Legends of Gaming. Based on Endemol’s British web series of the same name (which has raked in more than 32 million views to date), Legends of Gaming is hosted by YouTube star Toby Turner and features four teams of two gamers competing against each other in eSports events. The series is sponsored by Pizza Hut, with gaming equipment donations from Razer and iBuyPower.

Overall, Endemol will create 37 Legends of Gaming episodes, 37 Legends of Gaming: Game Play episodes (to show the entire competition), and 37 bloopers and outtakes segments. The MCN will also create additional interviews, profiles, recaps, and win/fail videos. Endemol will post Legends-related content seven days a week through February 2016 on the SMASHER Network YouTube channel.

In addition to Legends of Gaming content, Endemol has prepared seven new original series for release on SMASHER. The first is athlete-based Rule’m Sports, hosted by digital star Jesse Wellens and based on the popular Endemol UK series of the same name (the across-the-pond version of Rule’m Sports is hosted by YouTube phenomenon KSI). Other series set to debut on SMASHER include Game Fame, We’re in the Game, Fantasy League, Pro v Pro, and Smashed Up.

“eSports is trending globally and we’re excited to be at the tipping point with ‘Legends of Gaming’ hosted by the mega-talented Toby Turner,” says Endemol Beyond USA’s Interim President and COO Adrian Sexton in a release.  “Our premium networks’ strategy, starting with ICON Network and Michelle Phan, and now heading into SMASHER with eSports and gaming, puts us right in the middle of one of the most passionate and intense fan bases in digital. Game on!”

SMASHER Network content will be available on its dedicated YouTube channel, as well as across more than 20 digital outlets including Roku, DailyMotion, Amazon Fire TV, Verizon’s go90 service, Vessel, and Endemol Beyond USA’s OTT platform GetBeyond.US.

Filed under: Articles, Endemol Beyond, News, SMASHER, Web Series by Bree Brouwer
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