The Sidemen Go ‘Inside’ Reality TV 📺

The show has racked upwards of 38 million views

Good morning. Twitch announced a new service last week that lets creators stream with copyrighted music—and pay a portion of their earnings to the audio’s original rights holders. While unconfirmed, it’s believed that DJs everywhere celebrated the news by hosting on-stream ragers all weekend long.

The Sidemen Break Into Reality TV

The Sidemen release their reality show where 10 contestants compete for about $1.1 million over the course of one week / The Sidemen

Yesterday, creator group The Sidemen wrapped up their first-ever reality show, Inside…and it reached over 38 million views on YouTube in a week.

The details: Over the course of seven days, 10 contestants—a mix of creators like Joe Weller and reality TV vets like Love Island’s Chloe Burrows—competed for £1 million (roughly $1.1 million). For reference, Love Island awards £50,000 to winners.

The first and last episodes aired on Sidemen’s YouTube channel with 21 million subscribers. The episodes in between were uploaded to their More Sidemen YouTube channel, with daily extended episodes shared on their Side+ subscription service.

By the numbers…

  • 7 → episodes released daily over a week

  • 4+ million → views of the first episode in the first 24 hours

  • 38.1 million → total series views on YouTube

Context: Reality TV viewership has declined in recent years, making up only 12% of TV viewership from 2022–2023. But more creators are stepping into the space—and pulling numbers.

Druski’s YouTube reality show Coulda Been House has pulled in upwards of 36 million views in its three-month run. And MrBeast is producing his reality competition show, Beast Games, on Prime Video this fall with a $5 million prize. 

Instagram’s Adam Mosseri Talks Key Analytics and AI

Colin and Samir (right) speak with Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri (left) / Photography by Jesse Leon

What Instagram analytics should creators pay attention to? What’s the real response to that “Made with AI” label? Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, sat down with Colin and Samir to explain that and more.

Three takeaways from the conversation →

The healthiest metric to measure success on Instagram? DMs. Mosseri explained that “sends per reach” (i.e. “of the people who saw a post, how many sent it to a friend,” according to Mosseri) generate a greater increase in viewership compared to likes or watchtime.

“That tends to drive the most value for the overall [Instagram] community,” he said.

Roughly half of all video impressions are sound-off, according to Mosseri. Viewers are gravitating toward Reels they can understand with or without audio playing.

“Captions are so important…you gotta make sure that captions are visible in the feed, not just the full-screen view,” Mosseri said.

He sees Instagram’s new “Made with AI” tag as an imperfect solution. In response to creators’ criticism of the new label, Mosseri explained that Instagram is currently applying it to posts the platform identifies as having specific metadata from popular AI tools—even if the creator didn’t realize that tool uses AI.

“The goal here is—when we know [something is made with AI]—for us to be transparent, so that people can make educated decisions about what to believe or not,” he said.

Check out the rest of Colin and Samir’s conversation with Adam Mosseri here.

Why Creators Are Using Vimeo Again

Creator groups like Dropout TV use Vimeo’s OTT services to host their subscription-based streaming apps / Vimeo

Creator groups including Dropout, Sidemen, and The Try Guys are all using the same video-sharing platform to launch their membership-based streaming services: Vimeo.

  • The company offers a white-label version of its software (called “Vimeo OTT”) to creators for a base price of $15,000, according to Business Insider.

  • Creators can then host their premium content and charge fans a monthly fee through the platform.

Big picture: Vimeo’s high price tag means it’s really only affordable for a select group of creators. To find success on the platform, those creators “need to convert about 1% to 5% of their free YouTube subscribers to paying subscribers," a Vimeo executive told Business Insider.

👀 Creator Moves

  • DrewDoes is hiring a video editor to help develop rough cuts of his travel adventure videos.

  • Golden Hippo is hiring a content creator to create short- and long-form videos for its pet food brands.

  • Portal A is hiring a content strategist to oversee new project launches.

Calling all creators: an exclusive opportunity to tell the story of freelancers and get paid for sharing your experience. Join the Fiverr creator network today.*

*This is sponsored advertising content.

🔥 Press Worthy

  • Ludwig announces a new in-house video game publisher, Offbrand Games.

  • Investing commentator Roaring Kitty livestreams on YouTube for the first time since 2021.

  • Simone Giertz hosts an award show to honor the best inventions made by creators.

  • Threads is reportedly considering adding traditional hashtags.

  • Airrack recaps his two-year weightlifting challenge with MrBeast.

🎁 Share the Press

When you refer new readers to the Press, you earn merch from the Press Publish shop.

*Here’s your unique link to share: {{rp_refer_url}}

You currently have {{rp_num_referrals}} referrals. You're only {{rp_num_referrals_until_next_milestone}} away from receiving {{rp_next_milestone_name}}.

*Please do not use fake email addresses — they will not qualify as referrals. Thank you!