Pocket.watch, the family-friendly digital studio founded by a former Makers Studio executive, has made the jump from YouTube to subscription video on demand (SVOD).
The company, which is headed by former Maker Studio chief audience officer Chris Williams, announced Thursday that two of its new original series — “pocket.watch Challenge Squad” and “Mishmashes” — will be available on Hulu with select episodes also available via Amazon Prime Video Direct.
“Challenge Squad” is based on the studio’s YouTube channel of the same name, which now has over 130,000 subscribers. The new series, which has been extended to 22-minute episodes, is produced at the company’s Culver City studio and features the same cast as the YouTube channel, which has a total of more than 40 million views.
“Mishmashes,” an entirely new series, is a clip show format featuring viral hits and “best of” clips selected from pocket.watch’s library of 10,000 of its most popular videos for kids in the world. The series is hosted by a variety of characters including “dot,” a new animated character and pocket.watch original creation.
Both series premiered on Hulu in the U.S. with select episodes also premiering through Prime Video Direct self-publishing program — Amazon’s YouTube-like video hosting platform.
On Thursday, pocket.watch also announced the production of a sixth new series, “pocket.watch Digital Superstars,” which combines viral videos from all of the company’s YouTube creator partners and it’s own pocket.watch Challenge Squad YouTube channel in a new 22-minute per episode series hosted by a kid-friendly puppet called bubbles. The first 26 episodes of the series will be available for distribution globally this coming winter.
Paramount Pictures Worldwide Television Licensing & Distribution will package all of the episodes from the three new series and offer licensing opportunities to international distributors worldwide.
“Just like the big retailers we are partnered with have discovered, premium streaming services and television networks around the world are beginning to understand that in order to succeed with kids today, they need to embrace these new stars and formats,” said Williams. “We’re excited to be working with great, market-leading companies like Hulu, Amazon and Paramount to bring the incredible power of our beloved YouTube kid creator franchises to audiences in new and inventive ways.”