![]() ![]() We’re involved in a lot of those conversations. Lots of people who are doing what you do in some capacity say, “Oh, the next step is TV.” Are you guys making a TV show? Are you buying a TV network? Have you convinced Time Warner to give you headline news or anything like that? We spend a lot of time focusing on those other platforms, but YouTube is still the most consistent and predictable platform out there.Īnd it’s also very trendy - I don’t know if trendy is the right word. The bulk of your business is still coming out of YouTube? The company’s got about 375 people in it spread between Los Angeles, New York and some sale offices around the country.Īnd like you said, you started off as primarily a YouTube company, right now all the excitement around video has shifted to Facebook and Snapchat. We get about 50 million people a month to our various websites - Break, Smosh, we have a website called that’s really popular. A majority of that is actually on YouTube, which is a rarity nowadays when people talk about views. We do about 800 million views a month to our content. Yeah, so like I said, we have 70 million YouTube subscribers. How big is the company? How many folks are you reaching? Put it in the context of a TV network. Again, assume the listeners of this podcast have never heard of Defy. And we did because we were both getting to a scale and it was a scale at which no matter how successful we were, we always felt we couldn’t invest enough in programming, so by coming together we were able to do that. And we came together at the end of 2013 to create Defy. One, Break Media, and the other, Alloy Digital. Yeah, so Defy is actually the result of a merger between two companies. You make lots of content that you own, distributed on the internet on places like YouTube, I think Facebook. We are the owners of the channels and we are the producers of programming for those channels. It’s not a network model where we’re renting the channels and deals like that. And this is more of an owned-and-operated model. We have about 70 million subscribers to our various channels. And we are the largest owner of YouTube channels. Video primarily, right? With a focus on video. I think the 50,000-foot view of Defy - because we own a bunch of other brands and channels - is we’re a big creator of digital programming from 13- to 34-year-olds. But started off with two dudes from California. Smosh is two dudes primarily who are a giant YouTube brand, and they’ve now expanded - this is why you’re shaking your head - into a bigger YouTube brand. ” And most people who read Recode probably don’t watch Smosh but they may have heard of Smosh. So I always introduce you as, “These are the guys that produce Smosh. I think that is, unfortunately, a fair characterization. ![]() And I think a lot of folks outside a pretty small circle don’t know what Defy Media is. You’re a big video producer, you know how to do something a lot of people don’t. I think Defy Media is a little in the Rodney Dangerfield zone. Peter Kafka: I’m here with Keith Richman, who is - I always call you the CEO of Defy Media, but you’re president of Defy Media. If you like this, be sure to subscribe to Recode Media on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher. Below, we’ve posted a lightly edited complete transcript of the conversation. You can read some of the highlights from Peter’s interview with Keith at that link, or listen to it in the audio player above. He’s got even bigger plans for his empire. On a recent episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, Defy Media President Keith Richman talked about his stable of hot YouTube properties, like comedy duo Smosh, “Honest Trailers” producers ScreenJunkies and pop-culture boondoggle Clevver.īut he’s not satisfied with Defy’s 70 million YouTube subscribers watching 800 million videos a month. ![]()
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