Piers Morgan's Uncensored Launches Paid Tier to Own Its Audience Beyond YouTube

Uncensored, the media company founded by Piers Morgan in February 2024, is launching its first paid subscription product, according to chief executive Rashida Jones. In doing so, the publisher is hoping to turn a portion of its YouTube audience into paying members, part of a broader push to diversify its revenue base beyond advertising. Starting Oct. 19, the company will roll out four weekly newsletters, one for each of its verticals: Piers Morgan Uncensored, History Uncensored, The Royals Uncensored, and Football Uncensored. The publisher will also launch a new website at the same time, both of which will be built on the newsletter platform Beehiiv. Paid members will get ad-free and early access to the Uncensored programming, written essays and extended video from hosts, community features like book clubs and Q&As, and early or discounted tickets to live tapings, according to Jones. The shows will keep streaming free on YouTube, where Uncensored has 4.6 million subscribers across its channels. The paid tier is meant to sit on top of that free product rather than replace it, Jones said. “We have a very premium experience in our free tier,” Jones said. “The subscriptions will appeal to people who are looking for more content, ad-free content, and earlier content. We think this is additive." Subscriptions are sold per vertical, with no all-access bundle at launch. Each costs $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year; for the first 30 days, the company is offering a discounted annual plan for $29.99. Uncensored expects 2% to 4% of its audience to convert from free to paid at first, which is in line with industry benchmarks, according to Jones. The company declined to comment on its overall revenue or profitability, other than to say that its business has grown significantly over the past six months, according to Jones, who previously served as the president of MSNBC for four years. Under her leadership, Uncensored has added a number of new revenue streams, including licensing, live events, and now subscriptions. In June, Uncensored raised $27 million in a round led by Raine Ventures and Antenna Group, which valued the company at $145 million. The deal reflects a broader shift among journalists and creators toward owning their audiences, according to Beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk. "[Morgan] and so many other journalists and creators have figured out that owning your audience and distribution is essential to succeeding in media today," Denk said. A hard migration Moving an audience built on YouTube onto a company's own website and newsletter is difficult, and few companies have pulled it off, according to Michael Silberman, executive vice president of media strategy at subscription platform Piano. "There aren't any notable successes I know of, and the earlier platform-built brands like NowThis weren't able to make the shift to owned audiences,” Silberman said. “The big difference in this case is that Piers Morgan is a very well-known TV journalist, and he's built a strong subscriber base on YouTube." Uncensored is selling memberships through its own site rather than YouTube's channel memberships, which take a 30% cut of revenue. That signals the company is trying to build an audience it owns, which is the smart long-term approach, according to Silberman. The steep launch discount is also a smart move, per Silberman. Annual subscribers are worth far more than monthly ones over two or three years, which justifies a big discount up front. Skipping a bundle makes sense for now, too, according to Silberman. The Piers Morgan show is the most likely of the four to drive subscriber volume, while the other verticals likely have separate, niche audiences that a bundle might not appeal to. “They’re using the right paid content strategy to try to extend that audience to their own platform,” Silberman said. “It’s similar to the approach some podcasts have taken on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, with bonus and archive content available for subscribers.”

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Piers Morgan's Uncensored Launches Paid Tier to Own Its Audience Beyond YouTube

The company is hoping 2% to 4% of its 4.6 million YouTube subscribers will pay $4.99 a month for early, ad-free, exclusive content

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Mark Stenberg

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