Endemol announced its new scripted and reality offerings with a splashy ad during the Streamy Awards livestream this month, but what will these new hub channels offer to the YouTube ecosystem? We took a look at what’s already getting attention on each channel to see where Endemol sees the future of digital video.
Endemol launched Beyond Originals as a hub for new scripted content, marketing the account as a place where creators could submit their own series for distribution, as well as compete for potential television deals. The promotional video taps talents like director and writer Kevin Smith and producer Anthony Bregman to encourage creators to become a part of the largest independent production company. So far the hub is curating what the people behind Beyond Originals see as the current and classic best of the Web, which is the best barometer for what they’ll start uploading as their own series in the future. These “best ofs” include:
Neurotica
This sketch series by Reckless Tortuga that follows Mitchell, our protagonist, whom we follow as regular situations are overanalyzed and displayed as visual hallucinations and drifting thoughts.
School of Thrones
A re-imagining of Game of Thrones in the setting of a high school, featuring familiar YouTube faces like Mary Kate Wiles and Maxwell Glick from The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Team Starkid’s Joey Richter.
Little Horribles
A Barnacle Studios webseries described as “darkly comic” that follows the “poor decisions of the self-indulgent lesbian.”
Adult Wednesday Adams
A series that follows the adventures of a grown-up version of The Addams Family character Wednesday as she navigates apartment hunting, job interviews, and one-night-stands.
The channel also features numerous non-English series including the German series Wurmloch and Portuguese series Porta dos Fundos.
Meanwhile, Endemol’s reality offering, Beyond Reality, will play home to newly produced reality programming. First up is The Muthaship, a series following Emmy winner Drea de Matteo. The Sopranos and Sons of Anarchy star captures her life entirely on her best friend’s smartphone, and in the show’s teaser trailer she holds up her Emmy and says, “It’s done nothing but bring me bad luck since I won it.”
Aside from pulling the curtain back on Emmy winners, the channel currently plays hub to classic reality television getting a second life on YouTube like Flavor of Love and Deal or No Deal, as well as current Endemol-backed projects like Wipeout and Big Brother. In addition to de Matteo’s show, the channel also promises the forthcoming True Internet Tales, a series that goes behind the scenes of the biggest Web stars from the producers of E! True Hollywood Story.
Across both properties it’s clear that Endemol is making a play to be the go-to location for top-notch content, and based on the channels’ aggregation so far of some of the best of YouTube, viewers can be optimistic about the content of the upcoming original productions.
Screengrab via melissahunter/YouTube