Maker’s monthly views have more than doubled since Disney buy

Monthly views of YouTube network Maker Studios’ videos have increased to 9 billion, according to the Walt Disney Co. Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo.

That’s more than double the 4 billion monthly views the Internet video company was pulling in when Disney acquired it this spring in a deal worth as much as $950 million.

Disney regards the Culver City network as “mostly a distribution play” for its entertainment franchises, Rasulo said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference on Wednesday.

“We saw that as a very obvious way for us to get our content into this short-form system and into this digital-media system in a rapid way,” he said.

Indeed, buying Maker was a way for Disney to get its content into a large audience that skews young. Maker has amassed about 450 million subscribers for its channels by personalities including PewDiePie and the Shaytards.

But, Rasulo said, Disney’s plans for Maker go far beyond distribution.

“We believe that Maker will be a big studio just like the Marvel studio and just like the Lucasfilm studio,” Rasulo said.

Disney’s franchises have been posting big numbers at the box-office this year. Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy” is the highest-grossing film of 2014 domestically, with nearly $300 million in the U.S. and Canada since its release in August.

Rasulo pointed to Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars” franchise, saying the venerable science fiction-fantasy series will follow the blueprint drawn by Marvel, which has resulted in TV shows and a deal for original programs on Netflix as well as hit films.

“We’ve learned, do everything, do it faster, because we already know the route, and take it through those same channels,” he said.

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