PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS
Whalar Group Debuts Lighthouse Studios
Whalar Group, a digital creator talent agency and media firm, has launched Lighthouse Studios to build a “network TV-like weekly schedule of creator-led series,” according to Variety.
Why It Hits: If you’re getting whiffs of the failed YouTube-focused multi-channel networks of 15 years ago, you’re not wrong. But times have changed and digital creators are scaling their businesses, which could make the format successful in the new decade.
Behind The Scenes: Lighthouse Studios will become Whalar’s entertainment-production arm, and will be run by CAA and Bron veteran Akshay Mehta.
Mehta’s plan is to “assemble a slate of recurring series that drop new episodes around the same time each week.”
The company will focus on debuting the content on YouTube, but also expand to short-form content across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat.
Episodes would range anywhere from five minutes to one hour (so everything from microdramas to traditional drama shows) across a variety of formats and genres.
TV-like appointment viewing is designed to cut through the noise and ease discoverability.
Last Upload: To start, Lighthouse will produce “two episodes of new content a day, seven days a week for 48 weeks of the year across a fairly recognizable programming grid.” Lighthouse’s first partnership is with digital media venture Lyrical Lemonade, which is run by Cole Bennett, a music video director who has worked with Eminem and Lil Yachty. He’ll be the creative showrunner for all the content coming out of the company. Mehta says more deals like Lyrical Lemonade’s are in the works.
The hope is to bundle all of this content to sell across digital ad networks. The new TV sounds a lot like the old TV.
Next Episode: With Markiplier proving how big an audience there is for YouTubers to move into premium scripted content, it’s possible that top creators will be open to it.
PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS
Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited, polled, and copy edited by Melody Song.
Published by Darline Salazar.