Dhar Mann to Launch One New Series Per Month Starting December

Dhar Mann, the YouTube creator with 170 million followers, will launch one new series every month on his channel starting in December. He announced the plan at content showcase Mipcom on Sunday, alongside Dhar Mann Studios CEO Sean Atkins.

Eight years ago, Mann started his business in his apartment living room, shooting on iPhones. He has now purchased a four-acre Los Angeles campus with nine sound stages — Creator City, opening with a "rather grand" event during Super Bowl week.

"We're going to have about 175 sets. It's going to be able to have about 15 concurrent productions happening at the same time," Mann said. "It's called Creator City, and it's basically where creators, brands and culture all come together in one place."

How Fast Does Dhar Mann Studios Work?

The studio produces five half hours of scripted shows per week and moves at a pace legacy studios cannot match. "Dhar Mann Studios goes from script to screen in a matter of seven days for an hour of digital content, and on the longest episodes, it takes us about 21 days," Mann said. "So, whatever I'm working on today, I can actually see come to life and get the audience's reaction on it."

The new campus will replace the unbranded sets of his earlier years with real ones. "Five years ago nobody was taking me serious, nobody was taking YouTubers very serious, but now all the sets are actual brands," he said. A coffee shop set can now be a Starbucks; a retail set a Target. Founding brand partners will launch with the studio.

What Are the Studio's Platform Deals?

Mann listed a range of partnerships beyond social media:

• Samsung TV Plus: over 100 million households, as its first original creator
• Fox: 40 vertical dramas in development
• Disney+: reaching 135 million subscribers

Mann has also agreed a deal for a new Samsung TV Plus scripted show, "Unlikely Families," arriving in the next couple of months. It follows "Unlikely Romances," the studio's first original scripted series, launched in June. "When it comes to family, it's not always about blood. It's often about love," Mann said of the concept. "Sometimes it was a teacher. Sometimes it was a friend. Sometimes it was a boss. And so this whole idea, this whole series, this is about families that come together due to unlikely circumstances."

On working with legacy companies, Mann said: "They're not hiring us because they want more of what they're doing. They're hiring us because they want what we're doing."

Why Does the IP Strategy Break With Studio Convention?

Mann framed his monthly launch schedule as a rejection of the pilot system. "The old way was like, 'Hey, we are going to spend millions and millions of dollars on pilots and see if it works, and if it works, then we'll order a series,'" he said. "Now it's like, 'Hey, give us that same budget, and we'll build not only that whole series, we'll build multiple series, and one of those is bound to work.'"

Atkins defended the economics. "I think it's a misnomer to say creators are making cheap content," he said. "What I think you need to say is that creators are making content that is the right size for the audience's expectations and the economics of that platform."

How Has the Revenue Base Changed?

Atkins, who joined two and a half years ago, has diversified the company's income. "When Sean started with us two and a half years ago, 95% of our revenue was between our YouTube platform revenue and our Facebook platform revenue," Mann said. "Now, less than 40% of our income is coming from those two places, and next year it is expected to be around 30%."

Mann closed with advice for those anxious about their jobs: "Don't get married to your job title, get married to the skills that you have, and develop those skills." With Creator City opening and a monthly series cadence beginning in December, Mann is betting those skills increasingly live on the creator side of the bridge between traditional and creator media.