Trouble is, none of these efforts ever amounted to much.Įven when Maker was able to take advantage of Disney’s deep bench of characters and other intellectual property, there were problems. The company has also been involved in higher-end projects like the reality show “Scare PewDiePie,” which was airing on YouTube Red until the recent controversy surrounding the gaming star forced both YouTube and Maker to cut business ties. Last fall, when the company relaunched its gaming and comedy verticals, it announced more than a dozen original short-form series, which would first air on Maker’s channel on Dish’s Sling TV service before coming to YouTube and Facebook. ![]() To be sure, Maker has been active in this area, too. AwesomenessTV, another YouTube rival, has built a studio business that includes making shows and movies for digital platforms like Go90 and iTunes and then finding additional revenue in later windows. Fullscreen, for instance, now has a video streaming app that it makes original short- and longer-form series for. ![]() “By the time I left, there were still tens of millions of dollars of minimum guarantee payments that we hadn’t made.” Current and former Maker Studios talent Markiplier (left) and PewDiePie (center)įor Maker to grow, it needed to do what other YouTube networks have also been investing in: original content, made and sold (and therefore monetized and re-monetized) by Maker. “We were signing these top Viners to mid-six figure minimum guarantees,” said another former Maker exec. Like other YouTube networks, Maker would sign social media stars by offering them upfront guarantees - even if these stars were on revenue-starved platforms like Vine. But the reason the views were growing was because the network kept growing and we were just adding more and more channels.” “Every all-hands meeting was led off with the number of views we were doing - 10 billion views, 11 billion views, 12 billion views - that was the outward-facing success story. “It’s the epitome of the colossal failure of the MCN business,” said one former Maker employee. It can’t sell them to other platforms in later windows or do anything but collect YouTube advertising checks. For instance, Maker takes a cut of all ad revenue generated on videos made by Markiplier - a top star in its network - but Maker doesn’t own all of those videos. The rest of the revenue was delivered by YouTube - but YouTube pre-rolls and branded content take you only so far, especially after YouTube and the creators take their share of revenue.īulking up by adding tens of thousands of YouTube channels might give off the appearance of scale, but Maker had very little ownership of that content, sources said. Last year, the company did $370 million in ad revenue, including $70 million from direct sales, according to sources. Maker was by no stretch a small operation. ![]() The following account is based on interviews with five former executives at Maker and Disney. Then there was the internal dysfunction at Maker, including multiple leadership changes, an inability to meet admittedly aggressive growth targets and difficulties in creating original content. What Disney learned - and what many have long criticized the YouTube multi-channel network ecosystem for - is that it’s virtually impossible to build a business on YouTube. “But when you started to poke around, it was obvious there wasn’t much there.”ĭisney ended up paying only $675 million for Maker, which is reportedly bracing for layoffs as the company plans to shrink the size of its YouTube network from tens of thousands of creators to roughly 300. “I was excited to be there - I thought it was going to be the next big thing,” said one former Maker exec, who joined the company following the acquisition.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |