In a management shake-up at Studio71, the digital content producer announced that COO Adam Boorstin and chief revenue officer Matt Crowley will be promoted to co-CEOs. Reza Izad, Studio71 co-founder and current CEO, will become chairman of the company.
The executive changes will be effective Nov. 1. Boorstin and Crowley take over the day-to-day reins as Studio71 has increasingly shifted its business model away from managing YouTube creators — and its roots as a YouTube multichannel network — to focus on multiplatform distribution, advertising partnership deals, and in-house production.
“We’ve evolved for the multiplatform landscape… We’ve moved well beyond our YouTube focus,” Boorstin said. About the co-CEO appointments, he said, “This was the next logical step for the direction our company was moving in.”
Izad will remain involved in Studio71’s strategy while working more closely with parent company ProSiebenSat.1, the German media conglomerate.
“When I co-founded Studio71, YouTube was the main way talent could build a video business,” Izad said in a statement. “But the media ecosystem has expanded since then, and over the last few years Adam and Matt have done a great job evolving and scaling our business offerings, while pushing for the company to own more content.”
Studio71 still manages a roster of creators across digital outlets, including Lilly Singh, the LaBrant Family, Michelle Khare, Mayim Bialik, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Naomi Campbell.
But increasingly, it has pushed to create and distribute its own content. In 2019, Studio71 acquired around 50 connected-TV video apps in 2019 in vertical categories like beauty, gaming, automotive and lifestyle, and it also has launched short-form video channels on platforms such as Snap Discover and Facebook Watch.
This year, according to Boorstin, the company’s production team is on track to create over 2,500 original videos and edit and distribute over 150,000 videos for multiple platforms. He declined to provide details on Studio71’s revenue breakdown, but he said Studio71’s off-YouTube revenue is now a “truly significant” share of sales.
Boorstin came on board at Studio71 in 2015 (when it was called Collective Digital Studio), after serving as BuzzFeed Motion Pictures’ head of partnerships. At Studio71, he has led teams including the business development division, which cut deals with over 30 video platforms including Amazon Prime, Roku and Pluto TV. He also led Studio71’s podcast division, which in two years has grown to over 100 shows generating over 30 million monthly streams.
Crowley, who joined the company in 2017, previously was at Verizon Media’s AOL as national head of video sales. Crowley’s sales teams at Studio71 manage upfront commitments with brands and agency holding companies and have executed over 450 campaigns annually.
Boorstin will remain based in L.A. and Crowley will continue heading up the New York office based out of One World Trade Center.
Studio71, which is a division of ProSieben’s Red Arrow Studios, currently has about 230 full-time employees. It’s headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Berlin, New York, Toronto, London, Paris and Milan. ProSieben acquired majority control of CDS, which was later rebranded Studio71, in 2015.
Overall, Studio71 claims its content generates over 13 billion monthly views across YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and connected TVs.
Pictured above (l. to r.): Adam Boorstin, Matt Crowley, Reza Izad