Communiqué 59: A cruise ship inspired by Jubilee Media
Cruise, a fast-growing Nigerian YouTube channel, has drawn significantly from Jubilee Media’s playbook. But can it survive competition?
1. All aboard the cruise ship
On Saturday afternoon, I was in a studio in Lekki, Lagos. The set was simple—a pristine white backdrop, like a blank canvas waiting to be filled with stories, emotions, and the complexities of human connection. The bright studio lights cast no shadows as if to suggest that here, in this space, everything is laid bare. And indeed, the lives of five young men would be laid bare over the next four hours.
Not too long after, the five men filed onto the set in a row, their postures a mix of confidence and unease. In front of them was a woman with a calm demeanor and a piercing gaze. She studied the men, preparing to scrutinize them. She was a mother, entrusted with a decision that feels deeply personal and profoundly significant: choosing the right partner for her daughter.
On that set, I’m witnessing the filming of an episode of “Playing Cupid,” a dating series that is one of the flagship shows of the fast-rising Nigerian YouTube channel, Cruise.
At the end of 2024, Ibidunni Oladayo, Cruise’s founder, appeared on Joy150, a popular curation of the most influential people in Nigerian culture, for his work building out the channel. Unlike the several musicians, actors, and content creators on the list, Oladayo had not released any chart-topping songs or starred in any Nollywood blockbuster. He had only grown a YouTube channel from scratch. But that channel had become a cultural mirror, reflecting the tensions, values, and generational divides that define contemporary Nigeria. With episodes like “Can Voodooists and Christians See Eye to Eye?” and “If Identical Twins Were 100% Honest,” the channel had gone viral, racking up over 14 million views with 190,000 subscribers in just over a year.
Oladayo did not create something new; he only took a playbook that had been wildly successful elsewhere and executed it perfectly within the Nigerian context.
2. The Jubilee Media playbook
To properly understand Cruise, you must first understand Jubilee Media, an L.A.-based company with over 9 million YouTube subscribers.
In 2010, Jason Y. Lee left his job at the consulting firm Bain & Company to create Jubilee Media. Initially, the company produced public service announcement (PSA)-style content, tackling issues like bullying and poverty. These early videos were earnest and heartfelt, but largely preached to the choir, reaching audiences who already shared Lee's progressive values. This continued up until the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The early 2010s saw the internet hailed as a force for progress, with movements like the Arab Spring and campaigns like Kony 2012 demonstrating the power of digital media to mobilize for noble causes. Media startups like BuzzFeed, Upworthy, and Vox emerged, blending entertainment with information. However, the 2016 election exposed the limitations of this model, as ideological divides deepened and traditional journalistic values were tested. With the rise of Donald Trump, digital media—the tool that had brought billions of people together—now became an instrument of division, and Jason Lee wanted to change that.
In 2016, Lee relaunched Jubilee Media, shifting its focus toward creating content that encouraged dialogue across differing perspectives. Jubilee stood out by embracing both sides of the social divide. It encouraged healthy disagreement, offering a counter-narrative to the polarized discourse dominating traditional media. Its shows emphasized authenticity, urging participants to be honest and avoid self-censorship. This approach led to deep, often emotional dialogues that resonated with audiences. The channel’s ability to tackle delicate topics—ranging from Middle East politics to parenting strategies—in a game-like, engaging manner made it a hit among Gen Z and Millennial viewers.
In 2022, Jubilee Media raised $1.1 million in a funding round that included the founders of YouTube, Patreon, Rotten Tomatoes, Triller, and DoorDash after gathering over 3 billion views on YouTube. The founders of Jubilee claim the company has since reached a $50 million valuation with only $3.25 million worth of funding throughout its lifetime.
3. Copy and paste
Thousands of miles away in Nigeria, Ibidunni Oladayo, a director who had grown popular for making music videos for artists like Patoranking and Pheelz and ads for companies like Samsung and Maggi, was paying attention. Unlike in the U.S., the problem Oladayo was trying to solve wasn't polarization as much as it was timidity—Nigerians did not actually say what was on their minds.
In the U.S., there were already platforms for airing opposing views. For instance, if you were liberal, you could watch Fox News for a healthy dose of conservatism, and if you were conservative, you could tune in to CNN for a serving of liberalism. Jubilee's work was just to bring those opposing viewpoints together and create a platform where they could be heard.
But in Nigeria, things were a bit different. Traditional notions of respect, a prolonged period of military rule, and historical regional, religious, and tribal divides had ensured that media was a one-way street. To a large extent, there were no opposing viewpoints. Society had dictated the prevailing point of view on topics like divorce, abortion, and feminism, and the media had followed society's lead; there was no platform for those with opposing views. Cruise’s work wasn't just to create a platform for airing opposing views but to first encourage those with opposing views to speak up.
In December 2023, Cruise posted its first video, titled “Should you have sex before marriage?” It was the first in a series of shows titled Face to Face, an adaptation of the Jubilee Media show Middle Ground, where two opposing groups—such as minimum-wage workers and millionaires or sex workers and clergy—were brought together to find common ground. Cruise put its spin on it, producing content around topics peculiar to Nigeria, like migration: “Should You Japa or Stay in Nigeria?” Other shows followed, including:
Guess Who: A show where an individual, often an influencer or popular personality, is asked to guess an impostor among individuals with similar characteristics. It was an adaptation of the Jubilee Media show Odd Man Out, which challenged stereotypes by having a group of similar individuals try to identify the “odd one out,” such as a gay man in a group of straight men.
Playing Cupid: A show where someone close to you—a sibling, parent, or best friend—attempts to select a partner for you from a group of individuals. It was loosely based on videos from Cut and Nectar, Jubilee Media's love and dating YouTube channel.
In 2023, when Oladayo launched Cruise TV, he repurposed his existing production studio and launched with just a team of three. Almost 15 million views later, the team has grown to ten, and his modest studio has become too small for the company’s ambitions.
Fully bootstrapped, the company has survived primarily on YouTube AdSense revenue. An audience demographic, 70% of which is based outside the continent, has enabled Dayo to fund continuous production. But in October 2024, the channel began accepting paid sponsorships. However, there are still monetization opportunities. If Cruise also adapts Jubilee Media's monetization playbook, then we will likely see spin-offs of different verticals, such as love and dating verticals like Jubilee Media's Nectar or a social party game developed around Cruise’s videos, similar to Jubilee Media's Spectrum series.
The history of Nigeria’s digital media, to a large extent, is a story of imitation. For instance, Fisayo Fosudo adapted MKBHD-style videos for the Nigerian market, and Big Cabal took BuzzFeed's style and Nigerianized it with Zikoko. Oladayo has been extremely successful in adapting Jubilee Media’s content, but other media houses like Pulse and Big Cabal, as well as creators like Korty could develop similar shows in search of the success that Cruise has seen. Currently, Cruise has a first-mover advantage. Constant innovation in storytelling and designing new show formats will be key to maintaining that advantage, but the market for this type of content is about to get hot, and the jury is out on how long Cruise can maintain its edge against better-funded competitors.