By and large, the opportunities that Youtube offers have been overlooked by the upper echelon of entertainers.
That is until today, when Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson announced that his Seven Bucks Productions company will team with digital entertainment group Studio71 to launch a Youtube channel, Seven Bucks Digital Studio.
“Other than my family, social media is my strongest relationship and it’s allowed me to connect on a very direct and personal level with fans globally,” announced Johnson in a statement.
The partnership will see him producing his own videos for the channel – including a scripted action series – along with projects from fellow creators who “share his work ethic and drive to inspire, motivate and entertain”.
Seven Bucks Digital Studio is sure to be a powerful addition to the Studio71 network, which already features 1200 channels hosted by such influencers as Vine star Matthew Espinosa, vlogger Lilly ‘Superwoman’ Singh, and ‘Internetainers’ Rhett and Link. The company claims to receive the highest numbers of views per channel of any YouTube multichannel network, with a total 5 billion monthly views, a figure that could see an extreme boost when Johnson arrives with his social media fellowship of over 100 million subscribers.
As the prior decade saw stars transition from the world of film to television, could this latest announcement mark the start of a move to internet channels? It would certainly be a major coup for Youtube, but not an entirely surprising one. Earlier this week, the company announced that, on mobile alone, they were reaching more 18-49 year-olds in the US during prime time than the top 10 TV shows combined.
There’s still a long way to go before that’s a reality, but the prospect sure is fascinating.