Top 18 UK YouTube Channels

By Blog & 2 more
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Image Credit – http://www.flickr.com/photos/korosirego/4481461680/
Photographer – http://www.flickr.com/photos/korosirego/

After writing our blog post about the top 10 YouTube channels by video views, we were intrigued to discover which channels are the most popular in the United Kingdom.

Before we start however, we want to point out one thing – the top 10 we wrote about previously (not surprisingly) included mostly music artists. This time we decided after originally looking at the top 10 to EXCLUDE music, TV shows and to an extent “brands”. We were also tempted to leave out “gamers” but in the end felt they did deserve inclusion.

Liam’s note – Video’s 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 17 & 18 are WELL WORTH WATCHING.

So with that in mind, we wanted to get to the “true” YouTube star channels in the UK.

Number 1 – BlueXephos YouTube Channel

Apart from featuring a doppleganger of Rand Fishkin in the video above!, the Blue Xephos channel offers game coverage in a comedic way. Produced by Yogscast founders Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane, their love of “inane banter whilst playing games”, led to them sharing their thoughts via YouTube. They currently have 11 employees.

Blue Xephos Statistics:

  • Video Views – 1,402,954,824
  • Channel Subscribers – 2,545,148
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 13,300,434
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 1725
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 4425

Number 2 – HDCYT (better know as Charlie Bit My Finger!)

Charlie bit my finger is the most viewed YouTube video that isn’t a professionally produced music video. The channel itself has other recordings made by Charlie & Harry’s Dad, Howard. The video above was made in May 2007 when Harry was three, and Charlie was one. The channel shows both Charlie and Harry growing up in standard family video shots.

HDCYT Statistics:

  • Video Views – 613,743,344
  • Channel Subscribers – 165,157
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 487,590,359
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 46
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 110

Number 3 – Kids TV 123

A children’s educational channel, Kids TV 123 offers videos and songs aimed at babies, toddlers and children. The channel includes popular nursery rhymes made more interesting by nicely illustrated pictures. Proof that YouTube isn’t all about gaming and funny videos, the Kids TV Channel is the first of four “educational” videos to feature in the top 18 list.

KidsTV123 Statistics:

  • Video Views – 587,660,344
  • Channel Subscribers – 167,157
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 108,994,944
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 125
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 1011

Number 4 – The Syndicate Project

The syndicate project is described as the UK’s solo gaming commentator. The main games that appear to be covered on the channel are Minecraft and Modern Warfare 3. Now I don’t know about you but my children are completely addicted to Minecraft and the videos produced by the syndicate project are exactly the type of videos they will sit and watch to see how they can do stuff better when playing the game. Now as a human who grew up with the Vic 20, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, I’ve been here from the start when it comes to “gaming” – and I’m sorry, but I just don’t “get” Minecraft!! Modern Warfare 3 on the other hand…..anyway I digress. Further proof from YouTube of just how popular online gaming is, and more importantly online gaming hints, tips, commentary and advice.

The Syndicate Project Statistics:

  • Video Views – 526,859,501
  • Channel Subscribers – 1,450,923
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 4,303,287
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 1741
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 2845

Number 5 – Athene Wins

Described as the worlds most famous record breaking gamer (by himself I think), Athene is a world of warcraft player who offers advice and tips (and latest news) on many different games including World Of Warcraft, Minecraft & Diablo 3. Interestingly, out of all the top 18 channels, this one is the only channel to have suffered a negative subscriber drop in the last 24 hours.

AtheneWins Statistics:

  • Video Views – 367,093,684
  • Channel Subscribers – 614,845
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 42,647,987
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 1591
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – (-514)

Number 6 – Massage Video

This YouTube channel is the second of our four education videos. Offering video tuition on almost all forms of massage and body pressure. Videos have been produced to help people learn reflexology, acupressure, meditation and breathing exercises. The videos feature instructions delivered by Carlo De Paoli D.O, an Italian national living in London.

Massage Video Statistics:

  • Video Views – 340,920,918
  • Channel Subscribers – 32,499
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 266,724,356
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 302
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 16

Number 7 – Diagonal UK

Diagonal UK offers a compilation of what can only be described as the weirdest “s**t” you have ever come across. Probably a good channel for finding strange but fascinating videos to shared. Their strap line is “The Other Side Of Normal”. Yep, I’d agree with that one!

DiagonalUK Statistics:

  • Video Views – 311,705,577
  • Channel Subscribers – 89,489
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 27,609,036
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 1168
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 70

Number 8 – Total Halibut

Another YouTube channel covering gaming commentary, this time with the moniker of “the UK’s number one variety gaming commentator”. Avoiding Minecraft videos, TotalHalibut has a first impression (of indie games) series called WTF is? The channel also offers a Q&A session each day about different gaming topics, as well as offering expo coverage.

TotalHalibut Statistics:

  • Video Views – 299,728,939
  • Channel Subscribers – 794,199
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 3,581,597
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 1799
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 725

Number 9 – Simon’s Cat

Simon’s Cat YouTube channel is the largest part of a much bigger social media campaign. The Facebook page has 758,287 likes. Simon’s Cat Twitter account has 76,046 followers. On Google+ Simon’s Cat has been added to circles by 7885 and been +1’d 8937 times, and finally on Pinterest, Simon’s Cat has only 16 followers, 5 Pin Boards and 39 Pins. The cat is the creation of English animator Simon Tofield, and Simon’s cat has a range of merchandise people can buy.

Simon’s Cat Statistics:

  • Video Views – 289,492,950
  • Channel Subscribers – 1,078,903
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 37,233,128
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 25
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 1312

Number 10 – TomSka

Probably our favourite channel out of the whole list, Thomas “TomSka” Ridgewell writes, directs and produces his own short videos on YouTube. Thomas is a 22 year old media production undergraduate from the University of Lincoln who was previously a producer/director at Cakebomb.

TomSka Statistics:

  • Video Views – 288,805,227
  • Channel Subscribers – 1,045,960
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 37,622,780
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 83
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 1730

Number 11 – Journey Man Pictures

The Journey Man Pictures YouTube Channel was created to collect a video encyclopedia of the world. Their videos are often provocative and factual. The videos give the viewer unique insights into world events through the eyes of a filmmaker and not necessarily the national media.

JourneyManPictures Statistics:

  • Video Views – 269,781,115
  • Channel Subscribers – 146,026
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 13,375,757
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 4589
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 140

Number 12 – Charlie Is So Cool Like

Charlie Is So Cool Like, is the brainchild of Charles Joseph McDonnell, who set the account up in April 2007.  In June 2011, he became the first YouTuber in the UK to reach 1 million subscribers. His YouTube videos range from The Challenge Charlie series, where he invites his subscribers and fans to challenge him to do “stuff, through to a Duet with Myself, My American Accent and Cooking with Charlie. He has an alternative YouTube channel called CharlieIsSoBoredLike whereby he just puts up videos of stuff that he does when he has nothing better to do.

Charlieissocoollike Statistics:

  • Video Views – 258,871,874
  • Channel Subscribers – 1,621,181
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 7,631,451
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 162
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 1026

Number 13 – Video Jug

The strap line for VideoJug is “Get Good At Life” – and with over 3,000 “how to” videos it would be hard to argue with that sentiment. Topics covered include dancing, magic, relationships, beauty and recipes, with each category having many “how to” elements created and uploaded (including how to dance “Gangnam Style!).

VideoJug Statistics:

  • Video Views – 256,533,797
  • Channel Subscribers – 160,814
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 31,661,167
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 3281
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 170

Number 14 – BubzBeauty

Bubzbeauty is the only one of several “beauty tutorials” YouTube channels to make it into the top 18. Created by Lindi Tsang, in August 2007. Originally living in Belfast, the young entrepreneur now lives in Hong Kong. She has her own range of clothing and make up brushes. Lindi has 2 other YouTube channels – Bubbiosity (her own comedy channel) and BubzVLogz (her video blogging channel).

BubzBeauty Statistics:

  • Video Views – 243,799,075
  • Channel Subscribers – 1,146,963
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 5,667,297
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 1289
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 255
Number 15 – KSiolajidebt 

Created in July 2009 by Olajide to showcase both his commentary skills and footballing skills on Fifa (insert whichever year you like in here!!). The account is part of the Machinima network that featured in our top 10 YouTube channels by video views blog post.

KSiolajidebt Statistics:

  • Video Views – 221,215,744
  • Channel Subscribers – 674,329
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 3,156,065
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 397
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 2573

Number 16 – My Red Room

To be honest, we couldn’t find out a great deal about the account (or the person who set it up) other than it appears to be a compilation of the YouTube users favourite clips. Even looking at their blog’s about me section we are only told “I am just another nobody. I have had an interesting and varied life, reaching the highs and scraping the lows, but somehow still (largely) in tact.” So there you go – good clips though.

MyRedRoom Statistics:

  • Video Views – 201,215,744
  • Channel Subscribers – 8204
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 101,949,636
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 32
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 17

Number 17 – The Slow Mo Guys

We predict that this account will continue to rise in popularity just simply because the quality of the content they create is sublime. Started in August 2010, the “youngest” entry into our top 18 has already amassed over 1 million subscribers. Created by Dan Free and Gavin Gruchy (Dan & Gav), they shoot videos of stuff exploding, being thrown or being hit, and then slow the action down to appear over 200 times slower than normal speed. The content is simply amazing and has already captured the attention of the national press in the UK.

TheSlowMoGuys Statistics:

  • Video Views – 130,110,356
  • Channel Subscribers – 1,049,298
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 22,760,581
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 65
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – 2390
Number 18 – Ted Crusty 

At this point we have to admit, the reason we wanted to do the top 18 was to include this YouTube channel and the previous one! We love this simply because of the “bizareness” of the videos and they have an element of Monty Python nuttiness to them. The account is titled as “Horrific Accidents 100% Legit”. When you view the channel you might find that it isn’t quite what you were expecting. We think this is another great example of someone coming up with a unique idea that they know will prove to be popular with a YouTube audience – anyone going down the rabbit hole of “accidents” on YouTube will know what we mean with this.

 

TedCrusty Statistics:

  • Video Views – 114,238,960
  • Channel Subscribers – 61,814
  • Most Popular Video (views) – 23,375,464
  • Number Of Videos Produced to date – 283
  • Subscriber Growth in last 24 Hours – (-1)

Takeaways

A killer video can propel your YouTube account into the big league when looking at channel views.

Take “Charlie bit my finger”, a single video with 487,590,359 views. This represents 79.4% of the total video views for this channel. The most popular video on the Massage Video account represents 78.2% of their total video views for the channel. And finally the RedRoom channel’s most popular video accounts for 50.7% of their total channel views.

High subscriber numbers is down to great original content that is either share worthy or useful.

The top seven subscribed to channels in our list are:

  • Blue Xephos (2,545,148)
  • Charlie Is Cool Like (1,621,181)
  • The Syndicate Project (1,450,923)
  • Bubz Beauty (1,146,963)
  • Simons Cat (1,078,903)
  • The Slow Mo Guys (1,049,298)
  • TomSka (1,045,960)

All channels offer something popular (gaming, beauty, comedy, cool), as well as videos that you are very likely to share across your social media channels (provided you like the content of course!). They all consistently upload great material and it would be interesting to see what never actually makes it to their channel.

Great content continues to increase subscriber numbers

Take the top five channels for subscriber growth in the last 24 hours:

  • BlueXephos (4425)
  • The Syndicate Project (2845)
  • KSIOlajideBT (2573)
  • The Slow Mo Guys (2390)
  • TomSka (1730)

The top three are all surrounding online gaming which is (prepare for the understatement of the century) still massively popular. They target specific audiences in the sector (e.g. game types) and offer good advice, tips and a bit of comedy to keep gamers entertained. The last two show (at least to us) that you can’t beat GREAT consistent quality. The Slow Mo guys offer nothing other than something that looks exceptionally cool when viewed – I don’t think it is likely to change someone’s life, but as we all become more social online this is exactly the sort of stuff we would share (and which helps us to look cool in the process by being the first one’s to show it to our friends).

Instructional videos will be well viewed, but might not necessarily result in a high number of channel subscribers.

If we take the instructional videos in the list as an example, the Massage Video channel only has 32, 499 subscribers (and yet has over 340 million views), KidsTV123 has only 167,157 (but over 587, million views) and VideoJug has only 160, 814 (but over 250 million views). We see these sort of videos as “one offs” – the type of videos you come across because you have searched for something in particular – e.g. phonics lessons for children or “how to do a thigh massage”. We think you are unlikely to subscribe as you only came for “one” thing, found it and then left.

The only channel that bucks this trend is the BubsBeauty channel that has both high subscribers (1,146,963) and high channel video views (over 243 million). However, when you consider the topic, the channel IS likely to have a high proportion of people who have found the channel via a “how to” search, but by the nature of the topic, realise that it is in their best interest to subscribe as the beauty tutorials will help them with other aspects of their look.

Have you found any YouTube channels that deserve more attention?

Do you know of any “up and coming” channels that are likely to break into the big time?

Can we just say a massive thank you to this website – http://vidstatsx.com – which has the most amazing YouTube statistics we have ever come across. Without the information it would have taken us much longer (and believe us this took ages) to put this blog post together.

Please leave you comments below.