YouTube and DreamWorks Animation will co-produce a series of daily shows called “YouTube Nation” for the world’s largest video site, according to two individuals with knowledge of the plans.
The shows will recap the most popular daily clips on YouTube, a common format for shows both on YouTube (Ray William Johnson’s “=3”, Phil DeFranco’s “SourceFed”) and off (Comedy Central’s “Tosh.0”). Yet YouTube is financing and co-producing this one itself, and will feature the show on its home page.
DreamWorks Animation already established a foothold in booming online video world when it acquired AwesomenessTV last April. AwesomnessTV is one of the fastest growing networks of YouTube channels in the world, and CEO Brian Robbins quickly became a confidant of DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.
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YouTube content chief Robert Kyncl first introduced Katzenberg to Robbins, and now Kyncl and Katzenberg have found something to work on together.
While AwesomnessTV’s core audience is teens and tweens, this show gives DreamWorks Animation a chance to target the young YouTube audience with its own shows. A successful producer of movies for kids, Katzenberg’s company has been extending its brand and business in myriad ways over the past couple years. It is producing TV shows for Netlflix and RTL, opening theme parks across the world and turning its movies into toys and other consumer products.
TheVideoInk first reported DWA and YouTube were developing the show, and Variety then followed with its own reports Thursday.