“A viral video that gets a million views is cool, but you know what’s much cooler is if you can make a viral format that makes 100 videos that each get a million views.”
Jason Y. Lee, Founder and CEO, Jubilee Media
If you hadn’t noticed, The Media Odyssey Podcast is a friend and family operation. Yes I was on holiday (again!), so Evan Shapiro brought in Jamie Shapiro, who has followed Jubilee since school, to co-host this one.
Meet Jason Y. Lee, founder and CEO of Jubilee Media, the company behind Surrounded, Middle Ground and Odd One Out, with 11 million YouTube subscribers. If you don’t know Jubilee Media, it means you’ve been living under a rock or you’re just old like me.
Surrounded, Middle Ground and Odd One Out are all formats, and Jason says a viral format is an order of magnitude harder to build than a viral video, because it means building IP and thinking like a studio rather than an individual creator. He explains how Jubilee goes looking for the next one. He also busts the myth on the importance of th cost of production to perform. Jubilee has “almost found the inverse” of the idea that “more money on the screen will lead to more resonance”, at least with young people.
Traditional media companies are now coming to Jubilee to co-produce. On 14 October, CNN and Jubilee co-hosted a town hall with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, who has since won the seat. It was the first partnership between the two: CNN aired it live and Jubilee is running the full video on its YouTube channel. Jason tells it from his side: how it started and what he wants from the next one.
The episode also covers why Surrounded is shot in a warehouse, the BetterHelp room in Nectar House, Jubilee clubs springing up in high schools and colleges, a live dating event at UCLA and the issue where watching his own content changed Jason’s mind.
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That’s it for today but before you go: