Defy Media will span more than 50 million unique visitors for
its owned-and-operated properties and more than 30 million
subscribers of its YouTube channels, which combine to total more
than 400 million video views a month.
Tuesday's news comes a month after one of the biggest so-called
multi-channel networks Maker Studios
closed its acquisition of online video site Blip. In August
29.6 million people watched more than 521,000 videos on Maker's
YouTube channels,
according to comScore.
The merger is expected to result in some layoffs to eliminate
duplications between the combined employee bases, but sales teams
will be relatively safe because they'll need to secure revenue for
a company that more or less doubled in size. Alloy and Break also
bring together unique sales teams. While the two independent
companies' audiences each skewed young, Alloy attracted a heavy
female viewership while Break skewed male. The argument for their
merger is that Defy Media will provide advertisers a wide swath of
male and female consumers aged 12 to 34 years old.
While Alloy Digital and Break Media each also run traditional
editorial sites -- such as Gurl.com, Teen.com, Made Man -- Defy
Media will be primarily focused on video content with those
editorial domains serving complementary roles.
Alloy Digital is considered to have a larger YouTube viewership
than Break, while Break is thought to have a stronger off-YouTube
audience. Alloy Digital's biggest talent is comedy duo Smosh, which
has garnered one of the largest YouTube followings at 12.7 million
subscribers. Break Media's YouTube channel has accrued 1.2 million
subscribers, roughly as many as that of Alloy Digital's Shut Up!
Cartoons. Break's AWE me YouTube channel has more than 917,000
subscribers.
Defy Media will invest in creating new intellectual property as
well as new means to distribute it. Both Alloy Digital and Break
Media had been in discussions with Microsoft about making their
content available on the Xbox gaming console.
