YouTube entertainment formats TV producers should know about

21 examples of reality & factual entertainment shows by YouTubers over the years.

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YouTube turns 20 later on this year, and the story of originators on the platform is one of constant evolution. After all, when YouTube first launched many people still had slow internet connection speeds, and camera phones and editing software were far more rudimentary. As the technology and connectivity improved, so did the ambition and creative capabilities of the YouTube community. In the early days, there were other competing websites, and some of the most innovative and talked about video phenomena could be found on other platforms - KateModern on Bebo, as an example.

However, over time, YouTube rose to dominate the market, and there have been clear(ish) phases on the platform: at first heavily focussed on short form viral videos like Charlie Bit My Finger as well as people talking to cameras on their laptops. Then in the 2010s as the importance of grabbing attention to building audiences became apparent, trends emerged such a whole range of pranks and stunts. The period of YouTube commissioning originals injected cash into the creation of formats, thus helping to push upwards the ambition of all creators and perhaps the expectation of audiences. Brands came on board, and the more chatty/conversational channels started to also launch more formatted shows, often built around a challenge of some sort. Video lengths grew longer, partially encouraged by the adoption of watching YouTube on the TV (and the algorithm increasingly favouring longer videos as they can carry more advertising). And especially since the end of the 2010s, there are now formatted creator series that are not unlike TV’s factual entertainment titles. In turn, the channels that have successfully launched these types of formats are often publishing less often/but higher quality.

I’ve included all sorts of channel and series examples over the past 20 years on YouTube that at a squint could fit under the TV genre of formatted entertainment. Before getting into it, a few little notes or caveats:

• This list isn’t definitive, and covers a broad range from competition shows through to constructed reality

• There are also a whole host of sub-genres deserving of their own list in future - so for example, food has always been huge on YouTube, not unlike TV

• Each channel includes a ball park lifetime advertising income (net of YouTube share); as always a huge health warning on this estimate as nearly all creators have a range of revenue streams not reflected in this figure such as advertising on other platforms, brand sponsorship, merch, product or ticket sales and so on.

Finally, in many of these examples you can see the longer term benefit of having an evergreen channel brand not tied to a particular series - so for creators like DudePerfect and Sidemen, they can host a whole number of series on their channels, similar to a TV broadcaster. Whereas when a channel is named after the series (such as Summer Break), the channel risks becoming dormant once the series has run out of steam.

Good Mythical Morning
Launch date: 2008
Views: 10bn
Channel subscribers: 19.1m
Lifetime advertising revenue estimate: £55m

This is one of several channels by YouTubers Rhett & Link of Mythical Entertainment (part of the investment group who purchased Hot Ones last year, see below). Their empire is built around food and food-related challenges with a whole host of different elements within their shows. They’ve created and published 2778 episodes of Good Mythical Morning, and their Mythical website gives a sense of the scale of the operation - selling a broad range of merchandise, plus podcasts, other channels, live events and more.