YouTube documentary channels TV producers should know about

Here is the first of a new weekly email that is intended to inspire producers by sharing channels, videos and content beyond the world of professionally produced & commissioned TV, film and online content.

While there are lots of websites that document successful YouTube creators, my goal is to look at this specifically through a TV lens. Thinking of all those genres producers specialise in - from specialist factual to scripted, fact ent to sketch comedy - and then finding examples to help producers and production companies get to grips with YouTube.

That’s the ambition, and while I could have started anywhere, I thought I’d start with documentaries. Some you might of heard of, many (hopefully) you haven’t. And yes, this is just a tiny scratch of the surface, and I’m sure in the future I’ll return to it as there so many more I could have included.

Please do suggest others in the comments - I’d be especially keen to discover more female documentary YouTube creators as well as a those from beyond the US and UK which dominate this list.

In this post I excluded the huge volumes of TV or feature film documentaries that are on YouTube. I’ve also left out all the broadcaster and documentary aggregation channels - I will do an email on all of these groups in the future. Instead, this is a list of documentary channels and docs that originated or found their audience on YouTube.

Finally, a little caveat. I’ve not verified the accuracy of any of the content on these channels. Indeed, one of the issues with YouTube is that as anyone can publish anything without any sort of compliance oversight, so there are real issues with accuracy, despite the best intentions of each individual channel creator.

This first email is being sent to all subscribers of Business of TV. From next week, I’ll only be sending it to those who have a paid subscription, so if you find this helpful please do upgrade below. If you don’t fancy this second weekly email, that is fine, you’ll continue to get the Friday free newsletter.

YouTube documentaries

Dodford
Launch date: 2016
Views: 40m
Channel subscribers: 376k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £220k

Dodford (Danny McMahon) is a British YouTube creator and VFX artist, who makes what he calls pop culture portraits such as the one above on Harrison Ford. They are highly edited, visual and cinematic videos of people he finds inspiring in pop culture. His success has been the subject of other YouTube videos, and he also did this podcast interview where he explains his approach; how he has worked with the Sidemen and MrBeast; and also how lucrative his brand deals are versus advertising on YouTube.

Defunctland
Launch date: 2016
Views: 232m
Channel subscribers: 2m
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £1.2m

Many online lists about highly rated YouTube documentaries features Defunctland, which is a channel that explores the history of extinct theme parks and entertainment experiences. In particular, people rave about this feature doc about Disneyland’s Fast Pass scheme, which has generated 23m views. Similar to many YouTube creators who have been in the game for a while, they have shifted their approach from more frequent shorter videos to longer form videos - the latest is 90 minutes - and publishing much less frequently, sometimes with six month gaps.

Gold: A Journey with Idris Elba
Launch date: October 2023
Views: 22m
Channel subscribers: 371k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £120,000

This film must be many producers’ dream YouTube collaboration. Pioneer Productions and Idris Elba made this series for gold trade association, World Gold Council, which premiered on their channel in 2023. Since then, the show has been picked up by Netflix.

Lemmino
Launch date: 2012
Views: 649m
Channel subscribers: 5.7m
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £3.5m

Another channel that consistently appears in most recommended YouTube documentary lists. Lemmino is a Swedish YouTuber, and says he makes “documentary-esque, video-essay-ish, long form content” about space, mysteries and so on. The above video about JFK’s assassination is one of his most popular.

Story Co/Frontier Films
Launch date: 2014
Views: 10m
Channel subscribers: 150k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £55,000

Film maker Jason Carman’s YouTube channel previously was called S3, where he created a documentary about a different deep tech company each week. He rebranded it recently as Story Company (with an associated label Frontier Films) with the intention of telling stories about science and technology. They plan to launch a science/space documentary every month - above is a teaser - and their slick website is offering sponsorship and branding opportunities by listing each film coming up.

‘The Dark, Sad Life of Boogie2988’
Launch date: 2023
Views: 5.7m
Channel subscribers: 160k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £31k

Mike Clum has his own production company Clum Group, and on his own channel he published a single film - about a very online tale of YouTuber Boogie2988. What is interesting is despite it being a trailer and a single film, it has been a hit with the YouTube community and is repeatedly recommended and highly rated. Also, it is a great example of using YouTube premiering functionality, so that when the film was published, Mike Clum hosted a live watch along (and you can still read the live chat comments from that event). Like many others, he is crowd funding to create a second documentary via Patreon.

Ruhi Çenet
Launch date: 2012
Views: 1.7bn
Channel subscribers: 12.5m
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £9.3m

Ruhi Çenet is a Turkish explorer, who has built a global audience by visiting hard to reach places across the world. His video titles often follow the same format of ‘Visiting… the hottest place, most dangerous road, most polluted city, coldest place, highest security prison’ and so on. There is a video here where he answers his community’s questions which give further insight into his approach and success.

Atrocity Guide
Launch date: 2018
Views: 26m
Channel subscribers: 497k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £143k

There are quite a few YouTube creators who make documentary videos about the oddities of the internet, cults and other trends and sub-cultures of the online world. Atrocity Guide is one of the most admired - one online fan said of one her videos: “… might be the best youtube video I have ever watched. She is an incredible storyteller.”

Similar to others, she too has moved to a mode of longer duration, more professionalised and less frequent publishing.

Climate Town
Launch date: 2018
Views: 31m
Channel subscribers: 622k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £170k

This channel is focussed on examining climate change and communicating climate science, in a way (as they say) “…that doesn’t make you want to eat a cyanide pill. Get informed about the climate crisis before the weather does it for you”.

Soulr
Launch date: 2017
Views: 30m
Channel subscribers: 330k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £165k

Soulr is Jake Zeeman’s channel, where he is focussed on creating documentaries about artists from all sorts of backgrounds, under the strapline of ‘making culture accessible’. The artists he chooses are hugely eclectic - Kurt Cobain above, but also Charles Bukowski, Rick Rubin, Keith Haring, Basquiat and Frank Ocean. There is a good article about Jake here and also a Q&A with him.

Wendover Productions
Launch date: 2010
Views: 727m
Subscribers: 4.7m
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £4m

Wendover Productions’ channel is focussed on explaining how our world works. Their most popular video is one about how aircraft carriers work, or they have numerous on subjects such as the logistics of plane travel or German reunification.

Bandsplanning
Launch date: 2019
Views: 16m
Channel subscribers: 222k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £88k

This channel makes documentaries about obscure music genres (they say) are not covered by Pitchfork - so the above on psychedelia in West Africa, Chinese underground music and raves in the Soviet Union.

Shane Dawson
Launch date: 2005
Views: 4.4bn
Channel subscribers: 18.8m
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £24m

Shane Dawson has been on YouTube since it launched in 2005, and quickly rose to prominence in the first wave of YouTubers. He has a long history on the platform, with controversies, periods where he stopped publishing and so on.

He has changed the type of content he creates several times, and in the late 2010s, he was part of the trend of YouTubers moving towards making documentary series, including the one above on Jake Paul long before the Netflix Tyson vs Paul match.

Fern TV
Launch date: 2020
Views: 150m
Subscribers: 2.3m
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £6m

There is a growing trend for what are called ‘faceless YouTube channels’, which we will start seeing a lot more of as they can be easily produced using AI tools. Although this will also trigger a rise in so called AI slop that will swamp YouTube unless the poor quality channels are downgraded.

One quality faceless YouTube channel is Fern TV, which describes itself as ‘Armchair documentaries, almost weekly’. They feature subject matters like unsolved crimes, hacking, intelligence and the like.

Human The Movie
Launch date: 2012
Views: 34m
Channel subscribers: 221k
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £88k

French film maker and environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand made this film in 2015, with the specific goal of ensuring its distribution would reach the widest possible audience. As a result, it was screened simultaneously at the United Nations, the Venice Biennale and on YouTube in six languages, as well as 400 cinemas in France. It was released with multiple different variations including a theatrical version, three YouTube episodes, as well as a TV version.

Coffeezilla
Launch date: 2018
Views: 519m
Channel subscribers: 4.19m
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £2.8m

American YouTuber Stephen Findeisen specialising in uncovering online scams, pump and dumps, fraudsters, crypto and fake gurus. In this New Yorker profile, he said he was motivated to start holding scammers to account after his mother was encouraged to buy questionable products after a cancer diagnosis.

So that’s it for this week. What great YouTube creator documentary channels are missing? Please do suggest any you love in the comments, and I’ll include them in the future!

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