NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Revision3, the Discovery-owned online video network, has forged a new partnership with Fishbowl Worldwide Media to distribute and sell advertising for its pets-focused YouTube programming, as well as to fund development of new shows.
The new deal also constitutes a first-look deal, giving Revision3 (and its parent company, which owns TV network Animal Planet) first dibs on all co-developed shows.
Fishbowl Worldwide Media, a studio run by "America's Funniest Home Videos" creator Vin Di Bona and industry veteran Bruce Gersh, already held a deal with Revision3 for its "Cute Win Fail" show, which boasts more than 250,000 subscribers. Now Revision3 will distribute and sell ads for Petsami, Fishbowl's pets-focused channel, which has about 30,000 subscribers.
"We launched Petsami in January as a self-funded pets and animal channel and we spent the year growing an audience around clips - short and fun and funny and snackable," David Beebe, Vice President and General Manager of Fishbowl's digital studio, Told TheWrap. "We started talking to Revision3 about how to expand the audience. With Revision3, there's a lot of opportunity in merchandise and a lot of ideas about how to take the brand beyond and turn it into a franchise."
While Petsami has a small subscriber count, its weekly views are quite high, according to Ryan Vance, Revision3's SVP of programming. It has amassed more than 27 million views since its launch, reflecting that while the channel hasn't convinced viewers to subscribe, many videos have gone viral.
Petsami is bolstered by Fishbowl's massive library of user-generated content, which stems from two decades of submissions to Di Bona's "America's Funniest Home Videos."
YouTube has been investing more in premium content, funding channels that are offering alternatives to the user-generated content that first made the platform famous.
Fishbowl launched this channel without any of YouTube's financial support, but Beebe argued that there is still plenty of space for UGC on the portal.
Fishbowl, armed with development money from Revision3 and a first-look deal, will work with its partner to diversify its line of shows.
"They haven't hit with weekly regular shows with talent that the audience connects with enough to subscribe and watch on a regular basis," Vance told TheWrap. "They have a unique library of all those years of clips from Vin Di Bona Productions' history. Part of what we'll do is help them figure out what are weekly and regular types shows that will get more of a subscriber base growing."
If the show pleases Revision3 enough, it could also find its way on television. Discovery acquired Revision3 in May to help bring the company's digital experts under its TV-focused corporate umbrella. Revision3 can help cross-promote on YouTube and on Discovery, giving more scale to the channel.
"We've had a lot of conversations with Revision3 about how we work with Discovery and Animal Planet to take some of that content and potentially move it to the Animal Planet world," Beebe said.
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