WatchMojo is a company and website which produces and distributes internet videos. Based in Montreal, WatchMojo has over a hundred employees globally, some of whom are part-timers or freelancers. They create a very high volume of short videos with low production costs, particularly enticing Top 10 listicles, which WatchMojo uploads to social media platforms such as YouTube.
WatchMojo was founded in 2006[a] by CEO Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, Christine Voulieris, and Raphael Daigneault. Its first six years were not financially successful. It made a variety of factual brand-friendly content and made money from commissions or licensing their videos to brands such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola. In 2012, Karbasfrooshan pivoted WatchMojo's focus to YouTube and Top Ten videos. They became popular on the platform, where they have over 20,000 videos and 25 million subscribers. At one point, they were the most-subscribed Canadian channel. Since this pivot, WatchMojo's income shifted mostly to advertising and they found greater financial success.
Business
WatchMojo is a company and website that produces and distributes internet videos. Each month, it produces hundreds of short videos with minimal production value and, under fair use, heavy use of unlicensed copyrighted footage.[3][4] The videos are then published on their social media platforms. WatchMojo owns over 35 YouTube channels, and also has smaller followings on Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.[5] The former include the primary YouTube channel, WatchMojo.com;[‡ 1] the identical but female-oriented MsMojo, launched in early 2016;[3] and MojoPlays, a gaming channel created in 2017.[6]
WatchMojo's headquarters are located at the corners of Saint Viateur [fr] and Saint Laurent Boulevard, in Montreal, Quebec.[1] As of 2019, its CEO is co-founder Ashkan Karbasfrooshan.[7] In 2016, WatchMojo had 45 full-time employees, all in Montreal.[8] In mid-2019, WatchMojo had 70 full-time employees across Montreal, New York City, Los Angeles, and London, along with dozens of part-timers or freelancers who research, write and edit the videos.[9] In February 2020, they had "100 full-time and part-time employees globally."[10]
In 2006, WatchMojo reportedly signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavor.[11] In 2018, WatchMojo signed with ICM Partners,[5] which was acquired by Creative Artists Agency in 2022.[12] The company's board of directors include Peter Horan and Janet Scardino. Previous and current members of its advisory board include former AOL executive and NatGeo president Ted Prince as well as former DMG Entertainment exec Chris Fenton.[5]
History
You got these emerging platforms like YouTube. And I just felt like, you know what, if you were to create a video on every topic, eventually, you could probably hatch a business around that.
Iranian-born Ashkan Karbasfrooshan was partially raised in Spain and moved to Montreal with his family. While studying at the John Molson School of Business, he decided to work in the online industry. He worked at Mamma.com, a search engine based in the city, before joining the website AskMen and spending time at Montreal's sports radio stationTSN 690. After leaving AskMen, Karbasfrooshan had the idea of starting a website for videos.[1]
Karbasfrooshan, his wife Christine Voulieris, and Raphael Daigneault found WatchMojo in 2006.[8][b][a] Montreal was far removed from the major entertainment and internet businesses in the U.S., which made it difficult to see the dynamics of the industry. Karbasfrooshan started out with around $250,000 — sizeable, but small compared to their competitors — and funded WatchMojo from his commissions as a salesperson and his minority stake in AskMen.[1] The business was met with intense skepticism from Karbafrooshan's accountants and advisors.[7]: 1:08 Karbasfrooshan told Global News in 2016 that, for the first six years, WatchMojo made no revenue. He and Voulieris did not pay themselves and took out a second mortgage so that they could pay their employees. In vain, he reached out to hundreds of venture capitalists, but they eventually reached one million dollars in debt.[8]
Nevertheless, WatchMojo continuing producing content, even if there was nobody paying for it.[1] WatchMojo's YouTube channel was created on 25 January 2007,[‡ 1] and its reach grew rapidly. Its videos were viewed over 13 million times that year and over 28 million the next.[13] In 2012, Karbasfrooshan decided WatchMojo should focus on YouTube and Top 10 videos, where he believed there was a bigger audience. That year, they became profitable.[1][9] From 2013 to 2015, the YouTube channel grew from one million to ten million subscribers.[3] In 2016, Karbasfrooshan was one of the 36 finalists for the title of Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Quebec.[14]
As of April 2024[update], the WatchMojo.com YouTube channel has over 25 million subscribers and has posted over 26,000 videos.[‡ 1] In 2016, it was the most subscribed Canadian YouTube channel.[8] When it had 14 million subscribers in 2017, it was the 35th most subscribed worldwide.[1] According to Social Blade statistics in April 2024, WatchMojo.com is the fifth most subscribed Canadian YouTube channel.[15]
Content
Short videos
WatchMojo's videos are typically around 10 minutes long. According to Digiday, viewers typically watch the videos for 5–7 minutes. They are tailored to YouTube's recommendations system, which favours longer watch times.[16] They require little production value and feature, under fair use, heavy use of unlicensed copyrighted footage,[3][4] alongside voice-over narration.[17]
"Top 10 Horror Games So Scary You Forgot They Existed"
For its first six years in business, WatchMojo made no revenue.[8] Early on, WatchMojo stayed away from amateur YouTube culture and followed a trend in informative non-fiction videos, producing thousands of these more corporate-friendly clips.[4] Their content varied from celebrity profiles to travel videos,[1] with titles such as "Freestyle Motocross Jumps", "Wolverine: Origins and History",[13] and "Cover Girl Tips For Faking It: An Eyelid Crease".[4]
Unlike YouTuber culture, WatchMojo made no claim to artistry or independence. Karbasfrooshan disowned both, saying user-generated creativity and web series were suited to traditional television, but volume-based content would bring scalable financial success on YouTube. Theirs was content either commissioned by or sold to brands.[4]
They earned money by licensing their videos to companies such as Bell Sympatico, AOL, MSN, Hulu,[1]TV.com, Yahoo, and the websites of newspapers.[13] Brands such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola used WatchMojo videos on promotional websites. In 2012, 80% of the company's revenue came from licensing and syndication. The rest came from advertising. That year, academic A.J. Christian wrote that WatchMojo's business model suggested that lifestyle new media content was the easiest to market to both consumers and corporations.[4]
In 2012, Karbasfrooshan decided to shift WatchMojo's focus to YouTube, where he believed most potential viewers were, and Top 10 videos. Their content now almost exclusively consists of Top 10 videos which cover almost every subject.[1] These videos have titles such as "Top 10 Unexpected Movie Deaths", "Top 10 Foods That Kill You", "Top 10 Controversial Symbols", and "Top 10 Christina Aguilera Videos" (MsMojo).[3][18] WatchMojo video narrators include Rebecca Brayton — widely known as the "WatchMojo Lady" — Young Deuces, Tanner Zipchen, Phoebe De Jeu, Jess Adel, Ricky Tucci, and Noah Baum.[10] WatchMojo's website does not host user-generated content,[19] but it has a "Suggestions" section where users can recommend, upvote or downvote ideas for future videos.[3]
In February 2016, WatchMojo posted the controversial "5 Facts About Veganism".[23] In a 2016 article titled "Top 10 'Top 10' lists that make no f**king sense whatsoever", The Daily Dot's Luke Winkie lamented the "algorithmic click-miners" of WatchMojo who occasionally produced "baffling" titles and noted that, by then, most people on YouTube had been recommended WatchMojo videos.[18] In the student-edited Cinephile: The University of British Columbia's Film Journal, Joceline Andersen argues that WatchMojo has corporatized fan culture on YouTube by turning Top 10 rankings and the use of copyrighted footage, formerly an outlet for fans which were nevertheless an irritation for corporations, into a commercial enterprise explicitly for brands' benefit.[24]
WatchMojo videos' strong use of copyrighted content has led to many Content IDcopyright strikes to them over their history. In all cases, WatchMojo has argued against them, citing fair use.[25] It was briefly terminated in 2013 because of multiple strikes.[26] On the channel, Karbasfrooshan published several videos in 2019 to highlight instances of alleged Content ID abuse from copyright holders. His company estimated that holders unlawfully claimed over $2 billion from 2014 to 2019. He tentatively suggested that YouTubers file a class action lawsuit to obtain a monetary settlement, which led to much discussion among YouTubers, but said he hoped it would not be necessary.[25]
Longform content and other ventures
In the late 2010s, WatchMojo started experimenting with longer content, especially after a rise in their channel's TV viewers. Karbasfrooshan said that he had wanted to establish a successful business first before making an attempt at long-form programming.[1][16]
For example, in 2017, WatchMojo produced both the hockey quiz show The Lineup and The WORST Travel Show, a Facebook Watch comedy series hosted by actor Kyle Gatehouse.[1][27] In a February 2019 appearance on BNN Bloomberg's The Open, Karbasfrooshan announced the launch of a entrepreneurship-focused spin-off brand called Context (later ContextTV).[7][28] Prior to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, they released their first documentary, Fox in the Henhouse, about the rise of socialism and the limitations of capitalism in the nation.[16]
Karbasfrooshan, Ashkan (2016). The 10-Year Overnight Success: An Entrepreneurship's Manifesto – How WatchMojo Built the Most Successful Media Brand on YouTube. Montreal: WatchMojo. ISBN978-0995313712.
