Abroad in Japan is one of the largest foreign run Youtube channels in Japan, with over 2m subscribers and watched by over 250 million viewers. The YouTube channel was kicked off in 2012 by sarcastic British ex-pat, Chris Broad, who moved to Japan to work as an English teacher. Wanting to share the experience of life in Japan with the world and put his dying hobby of filmmaking to good use, he started making monthly videos. Today the Abroad in Japan channel has produced over 200 videos and 100 Podcast episodes with many of the videos going viral and featuring in mainstream media. Each video usually takes a week produce, often taking the form of a mini-documentary. They’re usually scripted, filmed and edited, and the end result are videos that are closer to being a poorly run TV show, as opposed to a traditional Youtube vlog. They’d love to grow the channel long-term; more videos, more regularly. Due to the quality-over-quantity production process they’ve adopted, Youtube ad-revenue alone has never been sufficient to grow the channel. Worst of all, Youtube itself is fantastically volatile. In the past they’ve had entire videos and documentaries suddenly demonetised without reason, losing the very income they need to keep producing original content.
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