SourceFed


SourceFed was a YouTube channel and news website created by Philip DeFranco in January 2012 as part of YouTube's original channel initiative, and was originally produced by James Haffner.
The main SourceFed channel mainly focused on popular culture, news, and technology. SourceFed was a part of DeFranco's portfolio of Internet-based media properties, including his own eponymous news YouTube series. That portfolio was named DeFranco Creative and later renamed SourceFed Studios when acquired by Discovery Communications' Revision3.
On March 20, 2017, the cancellation of SourceFed, along with its still-active sister channels, was announced. The closure of the SourceFed Studios network was decided by the newly formed Group Nine Media, led by Discovery Communications, which was formed as a merger between SourceFed Studios and four other networks in October 2016. The final SourceFed video was a farewell livestream broadcast on March 24, 2017. Around the time of the closure of SourceFed Studios, the SourceFed channel had accumulated over 1.7 million subscriptions and 900 million video views.

History

Under DeFranco's ownership (2011–2013)

Development and launch

SourceFed was an idea Philip DeFranco had been considering as an evolution of his own YouTube series, The Philip DeFranco Show. In an interview with Forbes, DeFranco stated that he originally wanted to turn his daily show into several daily segments. He added that there was confusion among his audience when this format was tested, convincing DeFranco that he would need to create a new series to not alienate, but grow his audience.
The SourceFed YouTube channel was created in April 2011. In late 2011, YouTube began its $100 million funding of original or premium content channels. Due to DeFranco's position as a YouTube partner, the website offered him funding for an original channel. The SourceFed channel, based on a blog of the same name, was one of these channels. DeFranco revealed that he acquired the funding to launch the channel by originally promising YouTube that the channel would be run as a "celebrity gossip channel", and that it would consist of a single show rather than multiple different shows. However, DeFranco negotiated for less funding, in return to have creative control over the channel's content. The funding was provided by YouTube, as the channel was part of YouTube's original content initiative. DeFranco hand-picked the first six hosts of SourceFed: Joe Bereta, Elliott Morgan, Lee Newton, Steve Zaragoza, Trisha Hershberger, and Meg Turney. Additionally, SourceFed was originally produced by James Haffner.
The channel launched as an original channel on January 23, 2012. In 2012, Reuters reported that DeFranco had plans to create a news network. Along with the staple news show, five additional shows began airing within the first month of the channel's January 2012 launch: Curb Cash, One On One, DeFranco Inc.: Behind the Scenes, Comment Commentary and Bloopers. Curb Cash ended in March 2012. The New Movie Thing Show, a movie review series, and a movie club-style series titled The SourceFed Movie Club were launched in May 2012. Since then, SourceFed has debuted new additions to the channel's lineup. As additional content was being introduced, the SourceFed crew expanded, adding hosts and editors to its team.

Launch year events

In early 2012, the Maxim Hot 100 voting website crashed on multiple occasions. Bereta and Morgan claimed that these crashes coincided with them telling their audience through 20 Minutes or Less to vote for Newton as a write-in candidate. Maxim did not address their claims, but did come out with an article noting that Newton had "list potential". In May, it was announced that Lee Newton placed 57th on the 2012 Maxim Hot 100 list.
In March 2012, Philip DeFranco announced that he would take the SourceFed crew to VidCon 2012. There, Bereta, Morgan, Newton, and Zaragoza, along with DeFranco, held a Q&A panel and performed.
SourceFed hosts Meg Turney and Elliott Morgan, along with Philip DeFranco, presented a series of videos as part of YouTube's "Election Hub" during the 2012 Democratic National Convention and the 2012 Republican National Convention, and joined journalists during live coverage streamed at the end of each night of the conventions. A public relations representative for YouTube stated “Having awesome partners like Philip DeFranco involved will attract younger viewers and he will have a really fresh take on politics". YouTube's "Election Hub" channels for major news networks only received several hundred views, whilst DeFranco's videos on Election Hub received tens of thousands. It was put down to it being in an 'experimental stage'. Most of the partners of Election Hub, excluding DeFranco, Al Jazeera English and BuzzFeed, struggled to garner 1,000 views of their on-demand content during the RNC. During the videos, Turney predicted that the DNC will not make a difference for young voters. During the conventions, SourceFed uploaded videos explaining them. #PDSLive 2012 Election Night Coverage, a five-hour live event hosted by SourceFed and DeFranco, was nominated for a Streamy Award for Best Live Event.
Philip DeFranco later created a spinoff channel, SourceFedNerd, which was announced on May 16, 2013.

Under Discovery and Revision3 (2013–16)

In June 2013, Philip DeFranco sold SourceFed along with the other channels under his DeFranco Creative portfolio to Revision3. DeFranco also became an executive of Revision3 and the Senior Vice President of Philip DeFranco Networks and Merchandise as a result of the move. In June 2016, DeFranco made his earliest public clarification that he has "no hands on the creative decisions on ," and while discussing the cancellation of SourceFed in 2017, DeFranco detailed that after selling his DeFranco Creative umbrella to Revision3, he began to have less involvement on the channel, before having no involvement at all.
During 2013, SourceFed was announced to be a sponsor of that year's VidCon, as well as special guests of the event. The event would be held in August. During the event, the couch featured on Comment Commentary was "eaten" by Sharkzilla, the mascot of Shark Week. DeFranco previously hosted Discovery Channel's Shark Week event. While at VidCon 2013, DeFranco gathered 554 people to play Ninja, a playground game, claiming the amount would be a world record. SourceFed also made appearances at VidCon in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
In April 2014, it was announced that Elliott Morgan and Meg Turney would both be leaving SourceFed by the end of the month. They were the first hosts to ever leave SourceFed, something which would occur frequently after their precedent. Morgan and Turney, like the hosts which would leave after them, appeared in other online media promptly after their departures; Morgan would work with Mashable, while Turney would become part of Rooster Teeth's personnel.
In September 2014, Zaragoza and Newton hosted a news story covering various charities' refusal of donations from Reddit, following the then-recent celebrity nude photo leaks. The video received criticism from the SourceFed fanbase, and according to StatSheep, the channel lost over 20,000 subscribers. DeFranco took to Reddit, stating that the significant drop in subscribers was either due to "an error of that individual stats website or YouTube removing dead accounts." Additionally, in response to requests or demands in favor of removing or firing any hosts, DeFranco stated, "No. I let SourceFed control their own creative." The video has slightly more dislikes than likes.
On February 27, 2015, SourceFed hosted a live event from YouTube Space LA. The show contained live versions of the weekly recurring shows and spoof bits done by the hosts.

2016 Google−Hillary Clinton video

On June 9, 2016, SourceFed uploaded a video titled Did Google Manipulate Search for Hillary?, discussing whether or not Google manipulated search results to display Hillary Clinton in an untruthful positive light. This video was uploaded at the tailend of the primaries for the 2016 United States presidential election, with Clinton being the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election. Matt Lieberman, the host for the video, suggested that Google's autofill feature pulls up results for Clinton's crime reform, despite "hillary clinton crime" being a more popular search term than "Hillary Clinton crime reform". Lieberman did emphasize that SourceFed was not accusing Google of any crimes, instead calling the manipulation "deeply unethical and wrong but not illegal." Lieberman also added that there is no evidence to suggest collusion between the Clinton campaign and Google, but went on to claim that "the intention is clear: Google is burying potential searches for terms that could have hurt Hillary Clinton in the primary elections over the past several months."
The video attracted considerably more media attention than other SourceFed uploads, as it was referred to in posts by USA Today, The Washington Times, Business Insider, and The Globe and Mail, among other outlets. Shane Dingman, writing for The Globe and Mail opined that "This conspiracy theory post is not typical fare" for SourceFed. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times wrote that the "conspiracy theory began with a video from the online outlet SourceFed that went viral this year, and quickly garnered headlines on conservative news sites like Breitbart and InfoWars." Business Insider replicated the experiment shown in the video and found similar results. The video also drew responses from Google and Donald Trump. Google defended its search engine; one representative of the company stated "Google Autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause. Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how Autocomplete works." A Snopes fact check on the video rated its claims as "false". Trump stated that if SourceFed's claims were true, "it is a disgrace that Google would do that."
SourceFed uploaded a follow-up video, featuring Lieberman responding to the reception that the video received.