entertainment founded 2009 ; 7 years ago 2009 founders ben donovan danny zappin scott katz lisa donovan shay carl philip defranco kassem g paul ballon derek jones 1 2 headquarters culver city california united states of america and france key people courtney holt head of maker studios 3 ryan lissack cto parent disney interactive disney consumer products and interactive media 3 website makerstudios.com maker studios inc. is an american worldwide multi channel network co founded by lisa donovan former chief executive officer danny zappin scott katz kassem g shay carl ben donovan 4 5 and philip defranco . 6 shane dawson was also involved with lisa donovan and shay carl during their collaboration on the station which dawson described as a cult where very strange acts would happen . 7 outside of the us maker has built significant audiences in the uk brazil and australia and aims to expand its asian operations where it generates 700 million monthly unique views . run by rene rechtman president for international maker is building a headquarters in london for its commercial production and marketing activities outside of the us . an asian hub has been established in singapore offering limited commercial and marketing support until the business is larger . 8 contents 1 history 2 key personnel 3 content 4 sub networks 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit in june 2012 maker studios announced that the over 1 000 channels signed under the network received an accumulated over 1.1 billion views for the month of june 2012 . 9 10 youtube channels under maker studios have also collectively earned over 90 million subscribers . 11 in october 2012 maker studios surpassed machinima to become the number one independent youtube network . 12 however since that time according to comscore in december 2012 fullscreen passed maker to become the top ranked youtube based network . 13 in december 2012 shortly after the ray william johnson controversy maker announced that it had closed a 36 million round of financing led by time warner investments . 14 the most popular maker production is epic rap battles of history which averages 30 million views an episode . 15 maker s most successful channel is felix kjellberg pewdiepie signed under the maker sub network polaris . pewdiepie s personal channel is also the most subscribed on youtube . 16 17 maker studios formerly produced ray william johnson s equals three and your favorite martian . 12 in october 2012 johnson announced he would be leaving maker studios in an episode of equals three . 18 19 johnson had also formed his own production studio runaway machine formerly runaway planet . 20 21 johnson has stated online that he left maker studios due to the pressure the company put on him into signing a contract which gave maker a 40 % share of his channel s adsense revenue and 50 % of his show s intellectual property rights . johnson stated that they were using thuggish tactics to pressure him into signing the contract one of which was allegedly leveraging his adsense account for the intellectual property rights to yourfavoritemartian . he also claimed that maker studios ceo danny zappin is a convicted felon which he was not made aware of when teaming up with maker studios . zappin later publicly admitted to this claim . 22 23 24 25 on march 24 2014 maker studios inc. agreed to sell itself to the walt disney company for 500 million rising to 950 million if financial milestones were met . 26 27 on april 14 2014 relativity media submitted a competing bid of up to 1.1 billion but maker denied the bid . 28 in december 2015 the company became a subsidiary of disney consumer products and the disney interactive division of the walt disney company . 3 key personnel edit courtney holt was the chief strategy officer of maker studios . 29 due to danny zappin stepping down as the company s ceo ynon kreiz former ceo and chairman of endemol became the ceo of maker studios in may 2013 . 30 prior to kreiz becoming the ceo of maker he was the company s chairman . 31 ryan lissack is the current cto of maker studios . 32 in december 2015 courtney holt replaced ynon kreiz as ceo coming a year after disney s acquisition of the group . 3 content edit maker studios produces videos for channels on youtube including consider the source tessa violet bart baker yves bole kassemg timothy delaghetto peter shukoff and lloyd ahlquist s epic rap battles of history 33 sam macaroni along with several others . 34 35 that have almost as many viewers as nickelodeon . 5 maker s first three channels produced for youtube included maker music network tutele and the mom s view with both maker music network and tutele channels shutting down within six months of their launch . 29 35 36 in april 2014 maker studios partnered with blastphamoushd gaming . 37 maker studios have also signed celebrities such as famous rapper snoop dogg and his youtube channel westfesttv 11 38 39 actor robert de niro s tribeca enterprises 40 and kevin smith . 41 felix kjellberg known as pewdiepie is also signed under the maker sub network polaris . 42 sub networks edit revelmode is a network backed by maker that was started by felix kjellberg pewdiepie alongside cutiepiemarzia kwebbelkop jelly markiplier cinnamontoastken dodger the adrid family emmablackery evantubehd kittiesmama jacksepticeye cryaotic and pj liguori . 43 most of the gamers on this sub network were originally on the polaris sub network before revelmode was created maker music maker studios started a sub network called maker music . the network specializes in undiscovered music online and offstage . 44 polaris formerly known as the game station 45 polaris is maker s sub network for video game culture . 44 it includes channels such as pewdiepie cryaotic vegetta777 alexby11 slyfoxhound stampylonghead iballisticsquid and captainsparklez . makergen a sub network designed to promote small or growing channels . originally called rpm network but is now called makergen . rpm network was responsible for a large increase in maker s overall views which continued with makergen . maker gen has two channel featuring shows on the maker gen youtube channel one is called sup maker gen and the other is the still rendering podcast . see also edit list of youtube personalities list of multi channel networks references edit todd spangler june 26 2013 . maker studios founder danny zappin sues company over ouster . variety . retrieved july 14 2013 . eriq gardner june 26 2013 . maker studios power struggle detailed in former ceo s lawsuit . the hollywood reporter . retrieved july 14 2013 . a b c d mike shields december 15 2015 . maker studios head to step down . the wall street journal . laura sydell june 18 2012 . lights camera youtube studio cashes in on an entertainment revolution . npr . retrieved july 6 2012 . a b claire cain miller april 10 2011 . actors in smaller studios making pictures for the smaller screen . new york times . retrieved july 6 2012 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