French animation studio HARI has tapped fledgling digital distributor Soupir to build up the YouTube presence of its kids brands. 

To start, the Paris-based firm launched French and English channels in February for Mystery Lane (pictured, 26 x 22 minutes), HARI’s CG-animated mystery series about a Hamster detective that premiered on France Télévisions in August 2023 and RAI Gulp in January. And then in March, Soupir rolled out a US-only geoblocked channel for comedy series Grizzy and The Lemmings, which is streaming on Netflix in the region. 

Kids brand owners already know that YouTube is a necessary part of any distribution strategy, but engaging viewers and driving value there requires time and effort that most producers can’t afford to spend, says Soupir founder Charles Courcier. He launched the company about a year ago to provide these services, banking on expertise he developed while working as an SVP of digital production and distribution at Xilam and VP of digital production at Amuse. 

It’s common for companies to drop their content on YouTube and not realize how much work it takes to build a lucrative revenue stream there, Courcier notes. By analyzing YouTube’s data, Soupir aims to remove the guesswork around figuring out what appeals to audiences and curating channels accordingly, and also to ease the resource strain of day-to-day channel management. 

Soupir is managing all YouTube programming and broadcasts on HARI’s channels, and it already works in a similar way with other clients including PGS Entertainment, Dandelooo and TeamTO. 

For its part, HARI is giving Soupir a lot of content to work with, developing new exclusive shorts for YouTube that could be programmed as clips, compilations or live streams. The company has had some success on the platform already and sees its potential for reaching a global audience; its original Grizzy and the Lemmings channel has generated more than two billion views and eight million subscribers.