The $100 Million YouTube Channel: How Creators Became Hollywood Studios

The biggest stars on YouTube are no longer simply uploading videos. They are building media companies that increasingly resemble independent television networks.

LOS ANGELES — The stereotypical YouTuber once needed little more than a camera, laptop and internet connection. Today, at the highest levels of the creator economy, that bedroom operation has evolved into something Hollywood would easily recognize: a studio.

Leading creators now employ producers, editors, researchers, writers, camera operators, graphic designers, accountants and executives. They build elaborate sets, negotiate sponsorships, sell merchandise and produce programs with budgets that would have once belonged exclusively to television.

The most dramatic example is MrBeast, the online identity of Jimmy Donaldson. His company has expanded far beyond a traditional YouTube channel into large-scale entertainment production and consumer businesses. Donaldson's videos can involve enormous sets, international locations, hundreds of participants and production crews capable of creating spectacles resembling network game shows.

But the transformation extends well beyond YouTube's largest star.

Podcasters have built multimillion-dollar studios. True-crime creators employ researchers and documentary editors. Automotive channels operate garages and production facilities. Financial and educational creators have assembled teams capable of releasing content at a pace traditional television networks would struggle to match.

The economics explain why.

YouTube allows creators to distribute programming globally without purchasing a television station, negotiating with a cable provider or convincing a Hollywood executive to approve a pilot. Successful channels can generate revenue through advertising, sponsorships, memberships, merchandise, licensing and businesses built around their audiences.

More importantly, creators own something Hollywood historically controlled: distribution.

A television producer might spend years developing a program only to have a network cancel it. A creator with millions of subscribers can reach an enormous audience simply by pressing “publish.”

That independence is changing what constitutes a media company.

Some YouTube operations now produce documentaries, talk shows, investigative programs and reality entertainment under the same brand. Instead of building audiences around individual programs, they build audiences around personalities and then launch multiple programs around them.

The line between Hollywood and YouTube is consequently disappearing. Major creators are signing streaming deals, launching production companies and producing increasingly expensive programming, while traditional television networks are adopting the conversational formats and personality-driven programming pioneered online.

The next major entertainment empire may therefore look very different from Disney, Paramount or NBC.

It might begin with one person, one camera and a YouTube account — and eventually become a studio worth $100 million.