YouTube Duo, the Fine Brothers, Join Revision3 (Exclusive)

The Fine Brothers, winners of a Daytime Emmy Award, join YouTube heavyweight Phil DeFranco in Revision3's network

The Fine Brothers, the YouTube duo behind hit videos like the React series, have signed with Revision3 as their distribution and advertising sales network.

Benny and Rafi Fine have been in the online video field since 2004 and operate two YouTube channels as well as a premium channel that is part of YouTube's $100 million channel initative.

While the premium channel, MyMusic, does not pass to Revision3 in the deal, the brothers’ original channel boasts more than 1.7 million subscribers and upwards of 367 million video views, and their TheFineBros2 has another 150,000 subscribers. They have also won a Daytime Emmy Award for "Best Viral Video Series."

"It's a simple thing for us; we want to be working with the best creators," Ryan Vance, SVP of programming for Revision3, told TheWrap. "It's always been about quality over quantity, and we want to work with people we can help grow."

YouTube creators sign various types of deals with networks, from handing over production responsibilities to straight advertising and distribution relationships.

Those who already have an established following, like the brothers, tend to need less from the partnership as they are already turning a profit. 

Nonetheless, joining a network can enhance monetization potential. The San Francisco-based Revision3 –which is owned by Discovery Communications — has an extensive ad sales team, will provide production resources and help with staffing. 

Flexibiltiy was the key to the deal. Though Revision3 has an exclusive advertising sales agreement, that will not preclude major brands from stepping in for certain projects.

“We have been talking with and communicating about a structure that works for them,” Vance said. “We’ve wanted to work together for quite some time and we listened to what they are looking to do. The conversations we have are based around ‘what do you guys want to be?’”

Revision3's network partners change a great deal, as the company signs prominent YouTubers but also sees them move elsewhere. EpicMealTime left the network earlier this year for The Collective.

However, the flexibility of Revision3's deals has allowed the company to consistently lure prominent YouTubers.

"Revision3 was open to playing with the different parts of the deal to make it enticing for us to join, to be partners," Rafi Fine told TheWrap. "It allows us to trust them, especially when we're signing over our account in a lot of ways."

The Fine Brothers immediately become one of Revision3’s biggest partners, joining Phil DeFranco, one of YouTube's biggest stars. De Franco recently hosted Shark Week for Discovery. 

The oppportunity to work with Discovery only added to the allure of the Revision3 deal for the Fine Brothers.

“We haven’t been able to talk fully about that,” Vance said. “But we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Because the Fine Brothers have publicly criticized large networks of YouTube channels for taking advantage of smaller content creators, they expect many in the community to be surprised by their signing such a deal. But after negotiating with various major networks, they felt Revision3 was the logical choice.

“We’ve been pretty vocal about networks in general and the importance of finding the right one, of finding trustworthy people, but as vocal as we’ve been about staying independent we’re not steadfastly anti-network,” Benny Fine told TheWrap.

“We’ve had a long relationship with Revision3, and a year and a half of conversations together to bring us to this point. We respect everybody over there a great deal and found a way to make a deal for both of us.”

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