Future of TV Briefing: A Q&A with Michelle Khare on why YouTube creators are contending for Emmys

Khare is among the YouTube creators competing for an Primetime Emmy Award this year. Her show “Challenge Accepted” earned a place on the nomination ballot for the Primetime Emmy in the outstanding hosted nonfiction series category. Khare’s Emmy eligibility comes a year after YouTube CEO Neal Mohan penned an op-ed pushing the Television Academy to consider YouTube creators alongside traditional TV and streaming programming for its awards. 

While Khare’s show – and fellow creator-led YouTube series “Hot Ones” hosted by Sean Evans and “Good Mythical Morning” hosted by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal which have also earned Emmy ballot entries – still has to make it through the nomination process that closes on June 23, her place on the nomination ballot is signal enough of how YouTube has rooted itself in the entertainment firmament. 

Skeptical that a YouTube show could be considered on par with a traditional TV or streaming series? Well, read on to see how TV-like the production of “Challenge Accepted” actually is. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

We spoke around this time last year, and you said you wanted to compete for an Emmy. Now you are. Why is this important to you?

Winning an Emmy is not just about being heralded as good. Really, it’s an indication of our industry maturing. There’s a reason that movies and TV shows advertise their top-tier content as Oscar-nominated or Emmy-nominated. It brings opportunities. 

This concept of going after an Emmy is not just an award to say we did a good job. It’s really that, if the Emmys see us as viable, great media makers, it will attract the crew to make it even better, the audience to support it and, of course, the ad dollars to keep it going. 

What’s the scope of your production at this point? How many people do you have working on an episode of “Challenge Accepted”?

“Challenge Accepted” and our production company are run in many ways like a traditional production company. We cover development, production, post-production, marketing all of our content internally. And then when it comes to crewing up our sets, we follow all the same departmental rules you would find on a premium television show.

When we did our Houdini stunt last year, between cast, crew and extras, there were 80 people on set making that come to life. All of the camera crew, sound, massive video village, tens of people in a live audience, a stunt team of five to 10 people.

Next week, for example, I am going to be attempting Tom Cruise’s deadliest stunt, which is his stunt from [“Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation”] where I will be strapped to the side of a C-130 plane as it’s taking off. For that production, I am in meetings with helicopter staff and Cineflex crew, talking about the logistics of do you rig a RED camera to the side of a plane going 200 miles an hour down a runway. In fact, there are people on our crew for next week who have worked on the “Mission: Impossible” movies.

On average, how long does it take to put together an episode of “Challenge Accepted”?

When it comes to the development of each episode, that can be months just emailing, calling people, finding the right people to pull into place. 

For the “Houdini” project, that was three to four months of interviewing various magicians and freedivers to find the right team of people who could bring it to life. It was working with a team of engineers and fabricators to build our own tank. Then it’s six weeks of me training for the stunt. After that, we perform and prep for the huge production. And then it’s eight to 10 weeks of editing, color grading and professional sound mixing. So that’s a really long runway, longer than you would expect for a digital product.

This year was something of a watershed year for YouTube where the TV screen is now the most popular device for people to watch. What share of your viewership generally is happening on TV screens?

The television device is the most used device across our entire channel for our audience. The exact percentage changes, but on average, it’s about 45% of our audience is watching on television.

It’s crude, but one of the ways to value something as “TV quality” historically has been budget. What generally is the budget for an episode of “Challenge Accepted”? 

Our budgets range, honestly. I believe that quality is best expressed in the storytelling. Some of our top-performing episodes – which have that cinematic quality and feel like television – were shot with a very small team of maybe one or two camera operators and a sound person and now have 15 to 20 million views.

Our project with the United States Secret Service has over 15 million views. When you watch the final challenge of that episode, it feels like an episode of television happening where there’s a simulation with tens of role players and a very high stakes scenario where I’m protecting the president. Most people would be surprised to find out that was a crew of five people who made that happen. What it is is a testament to our team’s ability to storytell and utilize the resources available to us.

You made the point earlier that one of the values of being nominated for an Emmy, let alone winning an Emmy, would be changing how advertisers look at shows on YouTube. Is that feedback you or your team have gotten from advertisers?

I more so think about it as even though there’s an incredible crop of independent storytellers driving culture, not everybody is on that page yet. Steps like this help get us there. When I think about this incredible crop of independent storytellers driving culture, I don’t think they should be ignored.

Do you feel ignored? At the “For Your Consideration” event that YouTube hosted in May, Rhett from Rhett & Link said something along the lines of “we’re trying to be invited to the party.” But with YouTube being the most popular streaming service on TV screens, it feels like you all are the party or at least a big party on your own.

Audiences are there, for sure. The viewership speaks for itself. At the same time, there are many people who are making big decisions who have yet to come to this table. And so I really look forward to the day when it’s not digital content and traditional content. It’s art judged for what it is and is it good and does it have cultural impact, because that is what the Emmys are meant to judge.

All of this makes me think of “Coda.” For years there was the conversation around the Academy Awards about when would Netflix or another streaming service win Best Picture and how much of a watershed moment that might be. Then Apple won with “Coda,” and nothing has really seemed to come of it — or at least not yet. If a YouTube show like “Challenge Accepted” or “Hot Ones” or “Good Mythical Morning” were to win an Emmy, what impact would you expect that to have?

Anytime a cultural change like this is imminent, it’s exciting when it happens the first time. Because it inspires all of the following generations to continue in the path of the door that’s been opened. And that’s really my objective here. And that drives economic interest; it drives more people creating.

The “Coda” example’s very interesting. That’s a great milestone. But it also has to become a regularity for there to be really integration and impact. The first one, whoever gets it, I can’t wait for them to get it. And also I look forward to the second and the third and everyone to follow. Because that is really where it becomes a melting pot of everyone creating together.

What we’ve heard

“Everybody, by and large, is going to focus first on the larger parent companies that have cross-channel access. There’s so much money [being spent with them] that you need to make sure you’re getting max value out of that. [The streaming-only companies] are still not in that first tier.”

— Agency executive on the upfront market’s seller hierarchy

What we’re watching

The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern and co. used generative AI video tools including Google’s Veo and RunwayML’s Runway to check in on that state of AI-created video production. Human video creators shouldn’t be too worried yet, but the technology has improved a lot since the “Will Smith eating spaghetti” days. Watch the video here.

Numbers to know

4: Number of layoff rounds that Disney employees has experienced in the past 10 months, with the latest round that is underway being the largest of the group.

$15 million: How much money Paramount Global is reportedly offering to pay President Donald Trump to settle the latter’s lawsuit against CBS News.

66%: Percentage share of survey respondents who said they see YouTube as a “realistic destination” for long-form TV shows and movies.

13.0 million: Number of paid streaming subscribers that Starz had at the end of the first quarter of 2025.

36: Number of scripted series that broadcast TV networks plan to air this fall, compared to a peak of 66 scripted shows in 2017.

What we’ve covered

LGBTQ+ creators hit by ad spend drop:

• 39% of 49 Fortune 500 brand execs said they planned to reduce their spending on Pride-related marketing in 2025.
• LGBTQ+ creators have attracted significantly fewer brand deals since 2023.

Read more about LGBTQ+ creators here.

LinkedIn courts creators — and advertisers — with new performance metrics:

• LinkedIn creators can now track how many profile views and followers they gain from each post.
• They can also now track how many times people click on custom buttons that link to a creator’s online store or newsletter.

Read more about LinkedIn here.

What we’re reading

YouTube’s must-see TV era:

YouTube is accumulating its own roster of sitcoms a la NBC’s must-see TV Thursday night block with creators such as Alan Chikin Chow and Dhar Mann creating TV-quality scripted shows for the platform, according to Bloomberg.

TelevisaUnivision’s ad boss exits:

Donna Speciale is stepping down as the Spanish-language TV and streaming company’s U.S. ads chief just as this year’s upfront negotiations get underway with former TikTok and Roku executive Tim Natividad replacing her, according to Variety.

Apple TV’s privacy protection:

Of the various connected TV devices on the market, Apple’s Apple TV is the least offensive option when it comes to collecting, sharing and selling people’s personal information, according to Ars Technica.

Disney’s new streaming bundle model:

Having previously bundled its own and others’ streaming services together into a single subscription, Disney is now packaging in evergreen perks, such as hotel discounts and DoorDash trials, to Disney+ subscribers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.