Who Will Be the Next Big Video Star?

Ahead of this year's NewFronts, a look at how four top digital video networks are attracting millennials and the content creators they want to watch.

- Tim Baysinger

By now, it’s a given that millennials—some of them having cut the cord, others never having had a cord to cut—are consuming an unprecedented crush of video content on a growing array of platforms and devices. And while appointment viewing is largely a thing of the past, it is also accepted that the bond that audiences, notably younger ones, have forged with content creators found on YouTube, Vine, Instagram and beyond is infinitely more unbreakable than their parents’ affinity for the likes of, say, Jerry Seinfeld or the cast of Melrose Place or any other TV star from the past you’d care to name.

Multichannel networks, built on the power and reach of YouTube and serving as a bridge between creators and brands craving to reach this base of young, hard-core fans, now constitute a 5-year-old ecosystem, one that finds itself all grown-up and yet as always remains in search of the latest, greatest ways to produce and distribute high-quality content—and of course, the next big video star.

And their appeal goes way beyond the screen. Take Twaimz, one of the creators for network Fullscreen. Not only do his videos log millions of views, but his recent tour of the U.S. sold out 22 dates, says Fullscreen founder and CEO George Strompolos. “Why is this happening?” he asks. “He has caught the hearts and minds of an audience.”

On the eve of the annual Digital Content New- Fronts where the freshest programming ideas will get pitched and some $3 billion in ad business will be up for grabs, Adweek caught up with Strompolos and top executives from Maker Studios, Defy Media and Studio71 (formerly Collective Digital Studio) to learn about the issues they face as they chase coveted millennial consumers and talent, and all those advertiser dollars.