PewDiePie Show Canceled By Google's YouTube

By Jack Nicas 

YouTube is canceling its top star's show and removing his channel from its preferred-advertising program after he made anti-Semitic jokes or showed Nazi imagery in nine videos, a setback to the site's efforts to persuade companies to advertise before its videos.

YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc.'s Google, made the decision to distance itself from its most popular video creator -- 27-year-old Felix Kjellberg, who goes by PewDiePie -- after The Wall Street Journal reported on a string of anti-Semitic videos he made over the past several months.

YouTube canceled the second season of Mr. Kjellberg's show, "Scare PewDiePie," which anchored YouTube's $10-a-month subscription service, a major bet for the company.

The company also pulled his PewDiePie YouTube channel from its Google Preferred program that lets advertisers buy space before "some of the most engaging and brand safe" videos on YouTube. The PewDiePie channel has amassed 53 million subscribers, nearly double the next most popular YouTube channel.

Mr. Kjellberg will still be able to post videos to his channel and earn revenue from ads sold before his videos, but those ads will only be sold through an automated ad auction that generally fetches lower prices than the preferred program.

Write to Jack Nicas at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 14, 2017 11:29 ET (16:29 GMT)

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