The long-standing reign of digital star PewDiePie on YouTube may soon be over. His contender? Desi record label T-Series. Yes, the music company started by dear old Gulshan Kumar.
His younger brother and son run the show now.
T-Series joined the video platform only in 2010 after getting tired of fighting copyright battles with YouTube account holders, who would upload their content without permit.
Since then, the music label has been uploading music videos - old and new - and, of course, Bollywood song and dance sequences.
Just to give you a better idea of this tortoise vs rabbit race, PewDiePie was crowned the King of YouTube in 2013 for having the highest number of subscribers, with over 14 million subscribers - a number which has since crossed 70 million.
T-Series, until earlier this year, had only 30 million fans. But now, giving PewDiePie a neck and neck competition, the channel has over 70 million subscribers.
When this article was written, PewDiePie stood at 70,574,769 subscribers, while T-series is close at heel with 70,231,157 subscribers. Very close indeed.
PuewDiePie Vs T-Series : Live Subscription Count
But YouTube’s crackdown of fake accounts on December 14 did seem to give the Swedish YouTube a lead in the race for subscription. Their current stats stand at this:
This has naturally irked PewDiePie’s fans and the man himself. In fact, if you visit his channel, his featured video is a T-Series Diss Track.
His fans have openly launched campaigns to stop T-Series from claiming the title of being the most subscribed YouTube channel.
So, how come this Indian family business is giving the Swedish YouTuber a run for his money? Well, basic maths.
More than half of the top 10 channels on YouTube, most of which belong to professional media companies, get their views from outside the US.
While YouTube earlier had been about amateur content producers like video blogger Ray William Johnson and Smosh, the Google-owned company has now lured most of the world’s largest media giants to the site, blurring the line between professional and amateurs, reports BloombergQuint.
To top it all, Relliance Jio’s entrance into the market has been a game changer. With internet penetration in tier II and tier II cities adding hundreds of millions of subscribers and some 300 new content creators on YouTube, it was natural that the audience strength slightly shifted to more desi demographics.
Meanwhile, there is yet another statistic we need to take a look at to understand T-Series’ growth on YouTube. As reported in the article by BloombergQuint, “T-Series posts all of its music on YouTube first, investing huge sums in videos that help promote its movies and spur song sales. YouTube now accounts for 20 percent to 25 percent of T-Series’ sales, which are nearing $100 million.”
So it’s easy to see why it is flourishing, even as it leaves a bitter after taste among independent content creators on the platform.
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