Top YouTube Multi Channel Networks - Europe Edition | Vidooly Blog

Multi Channel Networks have been an integral part of many popular YouTube superstars’ success. Acting as a link between content creators and video platforms (primarily YouTube), they assist creators in producing, promoting and distributing the videos in exchange for a percentage of ad revenues. Most of you know this right? There have of course been many criticisms about MCNs by YouTubers about mismanagement of revenue sharing, erroneous contracts etc; but you can’t really ignore the value they bring to the whole ecosystem.

For creative people who want to make a name for themselves on YouTube, but do not have enough money in the banks to showcase their imagination; MCNs have been the go-to resource for quite some time. It isn’t going to change anytime soon. Managing a YouTube channel and making it popular is not an easy task for a single person or a small team. It requires dedicated efforts by multiple people (or even teams sometimes!) with varied areas of expertise. For instance – Production Managers who can make the videos look classy and crisp. Audience Development Experts who can enhance the engagement with viewers. Rights Management Experts who can ensure that there isn’t any leakage of revenue due to stolen content.

YouTube’s biggest star Felix Kjellberg AKA PewDiePie who was quite vocal about his distaste for the MCN model last year has started a sub-network of his own! So, the bottom line here is – whether you like it or not, MCN model is here to stay. It might have its own demerits but you can’t really ignore its value addition.

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The European MCN landscape

With over 260 million internet users, United States is one of the biggest online markets in the world and have biggest youtube networks. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the YouTube superstars are from the US. Video content creators in the country understood the potential of the online video ecosystem sooner than the rest of the world and MCNs followed suit. If you do a basic research and try to jot down top MCN youtube list, you can see that most of the popular ones are from the US. But how about other geographies? How about Europe, how about Asia and the Middle East? What about South America?

This is a question that might be nagging in the minds of quite a few and that’s why we’ve started this new series of Blogs called MCN Showcase. In this 5 part series, we’ll cover the major MCNs from across the world – one geography after another – and we’ll showcase their growth, their strategies and popular channels that they’re partnered with. So without further ado, let’s begin with the top 10 youtube networks from Europe:

RTL Group:

One of the leading European Entertainment companies, RTL Group has over 54 TV and 29 Radio stations under its umbrella, spread across 10 countries. It runs some of the biggest MCNs from the continent of Europe. They also have a majority stake in US-based video ad tech startup SpotXchange.

Here are some of the biggest youtube networks under its wing

Fremantle Media – 749 (No. of Channels)

BroadbandTV Entertainment
– 2,547 (No. of Channels)

Network Views (Last 30 Days) – +11,718,095
Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): – +2,605,840,029
Top Channels –
- Rclbeauty101 – 6.64 M
- RackaRacka – 2,401,072
- Xpress10 – 1,628,019

BroadbandTV Gaming
– 4,837 (No. of Channels)

StyleHaul MCN
– 2,623 (No. of Channels)

Network Views (Last 30 Days): +2,633,891,335
Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +30,227,669
Top Channels
:
- Zoella – 10.07 M
- ThatcherJoe – 6.01 M
- JoeyGraceffa – 5.74 M

(*All network statistics like number of channels, monthly views and subscriber growth etc are based on the data that YouTube shares through its public API)

Read More: 10 reasons to join a YouTube MCN if you are a new content creator

Rightster:

Rightster provides software and services that support the end-to-end lifecycle of online video distribution, sourcing, audience engagement, and monetization on different video sharing platform. The company describes its service process as “upload once – commercialize everywhere” for their partners in order to have uber distribution platform.

In 2014, Rightster acquired Base79 and in a separate but related deal, they acquired Viral Spiral and a boutique MCN focusing on yoga content called Digital Yoga Network. Rightster will also oversee the marketing duty of 35 of 20th Century Fox’s YouTube channels across 17 territories.

The deals will make Rightster the fourth-largest YouTube channel operator in North America and the largest outside of the US.

According to a 2015 report investegate.co.uk, Rightster was looking for a strategic review that could lead to a sale of the business. But in January 2016, Rightster partnered with Paramount Pictures International to drive their audience development and global YouTube channel management.

RightsterEntertainment – 645 (No. of Channels)
Networked Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +73,174
Networked Views (Last 30 Days): +51,573,402
Top Channels –
- OfficialDisclosure – 548.91 K
- ENM – 495.53 K
- Hollyscoop – 183 K

Base79:

Base79 works with more than 400 premium content creators and is considered one of the biggest Multi-channel networks outside of the US. The Company manages content for partners like The Football Association, Ministry of Sound, Guinness World Records, Hat Trick Productions and YouTube Creators Remi Gaillard, Callux, Outconsumer, Dolly Bow Bow etc.

Number of channels – 48

Networked Subscribers (Last 30 Days):
+1,498,489
Networked Views (Last 30 Days):
+615,512,231
Top Channels –
- ComedyShortsGamer -5,921,903
- W2S -5,890,541
- Ultra Music -5,477,549

Zoomin.TV:

The Amsterdam-based Zoomin.TV, best known for online (news) videos has a strong base on YouTube platform. Currently, they manage 40.000+ channels with over 90.000.000 subscribers and generates 1.9 billion views on an average every month, thus making it one of the Top 5 MCNs in Europe.

Another specialty of Zoomin.TV is that they also provide TV booking for additional advertising campaigns on their own MCN inventory.

Number of channels –
871
Networked Views (Last 30 Days): +479,493,956
Networked Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +1,734,968
Top Channels –
- ZoominGames Espaol – 661,137
- Narrador de Videos – 609,622

ProSiebenSat.1

Just like Fullscreen and Maker Studios got acquired by media giants, this German broadcaster’s Red Arrow Entertainment division (subsidiary) has acquired a 20% stake in Collective Digital Studio, an MCN that currently encompasses more than 600 channels on YouTube.

This acquisition will give Red Arrow entertainment a wide portfolio of YouTube content creators and 15 production companies in nine countries. This MCN is now called as studio71 which is under the management of ProSiebenSat.1 Media.

Collective Digital Studio – 532 (No. of Channels)

Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +22,489,721
Network Views (Last 30 Days): +3,512,317,395
Top Channels –
- Good Mythical Morning 9,249,339
- RomanAtwood -8,328,832
- IISuperwomanII – 7,828,465 (CDS_Female)

Studio71 – 94 (No. of Channels)

Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +1,962,934
Network Views (Last 30 Days): +289,979,781
Top Channels –
- LeFloid – 2,847,689
- ConCrafter | LUCA – 1,415,357
- Kelly MissesVlog – 1,123,280

Endemol Beyond-Europe:

Endemol Beyond was launched in late 2012 in Germany and has offices in USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. They often partner with companies like YouTube, Yahoo, McDonald’s and Sony Music for the production of content.

EndemolDE -29 (No. of Channels)

Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +1,704,315
Network Views (Last 30 Days): +210,915,451
- Kurz Gesagt -1.86 M
- Herr Bergmann – 908.26 K

EndemolInternational – 73 (No. of Channels)

Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +161,103
Network Views (Last 30 Days): +78,906,117
- Simon’s Cat – 3.76 M
- Rule’m Sports – 1 M

MrBeanEndemol – 62 (No. of Channels)

Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +337,067
Network Views (Last 30 Days): +250,369,862
- Mr. Bean – 2.44 M
- Mr Bean Cartoon World – 229.86 K

Divimove:

The company operates Europe’s leading talent network with more than 1.6 billion views a month, 140 million subscribers and 300 million social media fans. Divimove also provides artist management unit which specializes in developing entertainment careers and has an in-house digital native ad agency “brandboost” which develops customized online communication solutions.

Divimove managed – 40 (No. of Channels)

Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +565,756
Network Views (Last 30 Days): +192,874,083
- Paluten – 1.3 M
- MarcelScorpion – 795.12 K

Divimove ES – 43 (No. of Channels)

Network Subscribers (Last 30 Days): +15,852,288
Network Views (Last 30 Days): +3,001,093,853
- elrubiusOMG – 16.33 M
- AuronPlay – 3.16 M

The situation now:

According to digitaltveurope.net, 42% of all YouTube’s video views in the first quarter of the year was on the top 100 MCNs. That just goes on to show how effective MCNs can be.

Traditional media companies like Disney have also woken up to this reality and are aggressively acquiring MCNs under their wing. StyleHaul – a beauty-focused YouTube multi-channel network got acquired by European broadcasting giant RTL Group for $107 million dollars in 2014.

A typical MCN with 1 billion views per month would be valued at US$97 million and make approximately US$21 million in gross revenue per year – Ampere Analysis

In December 2015, Comscore released the MCN youtube list of Top 10 YouTube Partner Channels by Unique Viewers.

Top 10 YouTube Partner Channels

These MCNs have succeeded by moving very fast, developing edgy content, and being willing to experiment with various content creators throughout various demographics.

The future?

In the developing world, people are already shifting to online content from traditional media. Chord-cutting is a major phenomenon in the US. Looking at the rate at which internet penetration is increasing across the globe, I’d say this phenomenon will spread everywhere. And Brands understandably will start shifting their focus more towards online video platforms for advertising and producing original content that can resonate with their target audience.

MCNs can definitely make a killing by connecting the right content creators with the brands for original video content creation. Red Bull space jump is the perfect example of YouTube branded content. Most of the big MCNs know the importance of data and statistics to enhance the performance of their partners. Some of them have their own custom CMS dashboards using which they constantly monitor the performance of their partners whereas others use premium tools like the one Vidooly provides. Whatever the case maybe, only those networks which scientifically and systematically run their business will cross the finish line in flying colors. The rest will slowly fade into oblivion.