New Waves, Who Dis?

In short

• A UK YouTube production company co-founded by Tom and Sam Hilton, June 2021 to November 2023.
• 182 videos and 352,276,641 views filed under it in Tom’s record.
• It made the two most watched videos in Tom’s record: the KKK prank and the Prime bottle walkout.
• Tom produced The Biggest Menace, a seven part series with Niko Omilana and JiDion.
• Corporate client work came from the BBC, Google, YouTube, JD Sports, EE and Universal Music Group.
• Tom represented Ollie Ball, Jacob Pasquill and Culture Force directly as agent.
• It wound down in November 2023.

The starting point

Tom came to it from Clash of Creators, the charity football match he co-founded with Callum Glanville, February to August 2021. His link to Calfreezy went back to Rebel FC, the football club he ran content for in 2018 to 2019. The company was built on two founders and a producer.

What Tom did

Tom worked all four lanes of the business: creative and format development, production and delivery, commercial and client acquisition, and talent management. He produced the KKK prank video end to end and owned its packaging and release. He produced The Biggest Menace. He produced 27 long form videos for TheBurntChip, including formats he created such as YouTuber Come Dine With Me. He represented Ollie Ball, Jacob Pasquill and Culture Force as their agent. Most of the company’s videos are filed in his record under Produced, Format and strategy, and Talent supplied.

How it was made

The creators. Tom’s record splits the 182 videos by channel.

• Niko Omilana: 7 videos, 134,562,641 views. NDL, his second channel: 6 videos, 18,725,532 views.
• Sidemen: videography on 2 videos, 39,270,700 views. Angels Management sourced the talent for a third, the OnlyFans Olympics.
• TheBurntChip: 27 videos, 52,004,088 views.
• Calfreezy: 10 videos, 33,011,849 views.
• JiDion: 4 videos, 31,176,699 views.
• AnEsonGib: 13 videos, 10,953,803 views.
• ChrisMD: 1 video, 7,621,280 views.
• Jacob and Ollie Ball: 86 videos, 2,312,557 views.
• Liam Bedford: 12 videos, 1,982,068 views.
• XCAD Network: 6 videos, 312,952 views.

The headline work.

• The KKK video, I Pranked America’s Most Racist Man, 13 May 2022: 47,563,094 views. See the KKK video.
• The Prime bottle, SNEAKING Into KSI’s Boxing Match (In the ring), 5 September 2022: 29,996,382 views. See the Prime bottle.
• The Biggest Menace, seven episodes and a trailer across Niko’s and JiDion’s channels, from 21 March 2023. See The Biggest Menace.
• XCAD Network’s first flagship live event, streamed from Times Square on 16 June 2022. See the XCAD launch.
• Clash of Creators, 25 July 2021, which raised £12,754 for Mind. See Clash of Creators.

The brand work. EE put Ollie Ball in EE Ultimate Gamer, a six hour Twitch stream on EXCEL’s channel on 30 March 2022, with Munya Chawawa. Ollie and Jacob made two Prime Hydration UK Chuck or Scran videos in January 2022. See EE x England with Ollie Ball.

The results

• 182 videos and 352,276,641 views in Tom’s record.
• 166 of them, with 338,657,351 views, fall inside the company’s dates.
• Ranks 1 and 2 of 720 in Tom’s record.
• 8 of TheBurntChip’s top 12 all time videos.
• Six corporate clients.
• Press on the KKK video from The Independent, Indy100, the Arkansas Times and WalesOnline, none naming Tom or the company.

What it proves

Tom’s own reading of why it closed: it worked, and it could not be delivered by anyone except its two founders. Creators wanted to work with Tom and Sam by reputation, and every attempt to outsource production or grow the team past the founders and their producer failed. Tom calls it the most instructive story in the record: a business that only its founders can deliver is a job with extra risk. The stories that sit under it:

• We closed a company that was working.
• Every time we tried to hire, it broke.

Coverage and links

• The Independent, 16 May 2022, on the KKK video.
• Dexerto on how to watch The Biggest Menace.
• EE Newsroom, 24 March 2022, on EE Ultimate Gamer with Ollie Ball.
• IMDb lists The Biggest Menace.
• No coverage found names New Waves, Who Dis? or Tom.