Mike Shields | June 27, 2014
Wall Street Journal

When it comes to news on YouTube, traditional brands like CNN and ABC News are chasing The Young Turks.

Indeed, while you might not think of YouTube as an outlet for news (and to be sure, news isn’t as big on the platform as say, gaming or comedy), the upstart news channel The Young Turks has built a following decent even by TV standards.

The Young Turks channel averages 37.4 million views a month on YouTube, landing it atop OpenSlate’s ranking of news-themed channels on the site (OpenSlate ranks YouTube channels based on audience consistency, engagement, social media influence, and other factors). That puts the progressive-oriented Turks well ahead of the second ranked news channel, The Alex Jones Channel, as well asABC News on YouTube and others.
The YouTube versions of cable TV news giants like CNN and Fox News don’t even crack the top five YouTube global news channels tracked by OpenSlate.

Believe it or not, The Young Turks, which just raised $4 million in venture funding, started out on radio and then eventually landed as a program on now-defunct cable channel Current TV.