Channel Awesome

Channel Awesome
Created by	Mike Michaud CEO Doug Walker Rob Walker Creative Content Officer Holly Christine Brown
Date formed	April 21st, 2008
Base of Operations	Lombard, IL
Contributors	See Contributors
Channels	http://channelawesome.com http://www.blisteredthumbs.net http://www.barfiesta.com

CEO of the company!

The World HQ In Chicago!

Channel Awesome is the company that sponsors ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, Blistered Thumbs, Inked Reality, Barfiesta and other Internet personalities associated with the organization.

History

Original Logo

Based in Lombard, IL, the company was founded by Mike Michaud, Mike Ellis and Bhargav Dronamraju. The company was founded in April of 2008 when Michaud had been looking to make a new media company after he and a few friends were let go from Circuit City. He saw the potential in then YouTube personality, Doug Walker. With Doug's help, the site launched with episodes of The Nostalgia Critic and 5 Second Movies being the first major draw. Thus the first channel of the company, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com was born. What was once one site, has now grown with many main contributors! See Chronology for a list of everyone involved with the company.

Once the first site launched, the hits rolled in and shows like The Nostalgia Critic started to average 100,000 to 200,000 viewers per week. TGWTG.com also gained 14 million page views per month. Thanks to Blip.tv's deal with YouTube in July 2009, the hits may increase in the future. The site gained about $10,000 per month thanks to ad revenue. With donations, the site gained on the upwards of 11,000 dollars.

In the future, the site plans on expanding to create many channels with TGWTG at its core. These channels include a site dedicated to nightlife and bars called Barfiesta, a video game site called Blistered Thumbs, a comic book/animé site titled Inked Reality, and others coming soon such as the Store.

The organization is also responsible for many of the events since the site was created. These events are:

• The February 2009 Donation Drive where over ten thousand dollars was donated to the organization.
• Live edition of Transmission Awesome.
• The Year One celebration!
• The second live edition of Transmission Awesome
• The second donation drive where they raised over thirty thousand dollars for the Ronald McDonald House charity. The event was held December 2009.
• The Year Two celebration!
• The second Donation drive for the Ronald McDonald House charity held on December 4th, 2010. They raised over 50,000 dollars!
• Suburban Knights

#ChangeTheChannel

On April 2nd, 2018, a 73-page Google doc was released containing contributions from ex-contibutors such as Obscurus Lupa, Linkara, Phelous, Lindsay Ellis, and many others describing their grievances and dealings with Channel Awesome, particularly with Mike Michaud and the Walker brothers.

Channel Awesome's response did not address the issues and simply stated "we regret you felt that way". This caused a major backlash causing a mass exit of contributors, similar to the exit in 2014-15. The subscriber count of Channel Awesome began going into freefall as many fans considered CA's response as unprofessional.

On April 12th, 2018, Channel Awesome released a second statement, in which, rather than apologizing for previous behavior, it simply gave the 'other side of the story' on a few select accounts from the aforementioned Google Doc. It only served to tarnish their reputation even further and the vast majority of their contributors have now left.

Channels

• TGWTG.com
• Blistered Thumbs
• Barfiesta
• Inked Reality

External Links

• ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com
• Blistered Thumbs
• Barfiesta
• The Spoony Experiment
• The Game Heroes
• RetroWareTV
• Team Four Star
• DBZ Abridged
• AngyJoeShow
• PBC Productions
• Dark Maze Studios
• Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series
• The Official YouTube Channel
• The Official Facebook page
• The Official Twitter page.

Articles

• Growing breed of accidental entrepreneur has recession to thank for business creation From The Chicago Tribune.
• Entertainers don't need TV break to hit it big From the Chicago Sun Times.
• Blip.tv gives videomakers a chance to be a star From USA Today.
• Blip.tv Brings Programs to YouTube, Ads to 'Channel Awesome' From Adage.com.