Rise of Indie News Creators: Less Than Half of YouTube’s Most Watched News Channels Tied to Legacy Brands

Viewers are nearly as likely to turn to independent news shows as they are big-budget news operations on YouTube — with independent creators often pulling in views that are comparable (or even stronger) than established outlets like MSNBC — according to a new study from Pew Research Center on Monday. Out of the most-watched news channels on YouTube, 42% of them are independently run, compared to 49% that are tied to legacy media, Pew found. (The remaining 9% are “associated with other types of organizations,” Pew said.) Strikingly, 70% of the most popular independent channels are built around a central personality.