For 24 hours today (starting midnight ET Oct 6), thanks to a promotional commitment from our sponsor, Starburst, our great animated series Nite Fite is being featured on the front page of YouTube in the upper-right spot usually reserved for advertiser videos, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Nite Fite is not a branded entertainment series, like many other videos that have appeared in that space. It’s a fully independently-owned show that has a standalone sponsor integration within each episode, not unlike Seth McFarlane’s Cavalcade of Comedy and its sponsorship by Burger King. The Cavalcade is being distributed by a Google AdSense buy, just as we’re getting a distribution boost from our front page buy (which we fully expect to be effective, as the show is good enough to have viewers then rate it, share it, and forward it along). I think it’s a tremendously innovative way for an advertiser to get their messaging out to the YouTube audience. By embedding a sponsorship in a YouTube partner channel (in this case Channel Frederator) that already has a ton of credibility and love in the YouTube community (with over 20,000 subscribers and 13mm views), Starburst is promoting a great independent show that deserves a wider audience, and getting their sponsorship viewed at the same time.

As of now, the latest episode, “TV is Crap,” has been up for around 1424 hours, been viewed 120,000300,000 times, and is holding steady at a four-star rating, with comments from viewers like, “this is the first ad on youtube that was actually good,” and, “Finally, a sponsored video that’s actually funny.” But my favorite one of all is this one from Trayxx:

I just clicked in to this 45 minutes ago out of curiousity, now after watching all the eps I’m hooked! Great job and keep it up!

One of the smartest people I know in the space, 7 Robot’s Sarah Szalavitz, a programming advisor of ours and, along with Damien Somerset, one of the owner-producers of our hit show Zaproot, has long been saying that companies like ours should spend less on producing and more on promoting content. Today’s trial, the results of which we’ll share here later in the week, could be a great model, not unlike the Seth McFarlane deal, for tying sponsorship and promotion together to get great programming in front of a wider audience.

In the first week of our new series, Nite Fite, we’ve had amazing feedback from fans, blogs and the press, as much for the great quality of the show as for the innovative sponsorship model we’ve undertaken with Digitas and Starburst. To celebrate a great first week and a successful launch, we’re having a party tomorrow night at M1-5 with Nite Fite creators Dan Meth and Mark Vitelli as special guests, along with many people from Frederator, Digitas and Next New Networks who all worked so hard to make the show happen. There’s a Facebook invite if you’d like to RSVP, or leave a comment here to get the Evite by e-mail.

Here’s a roundup of some of the show’s coverage so far. Daisy Whitney of TV Week wrote:

[Starburst’s] entry into the online video business is one of the first big bets by a name advertiser on independent Web video. It’s a signal to the marketplace that shows repurposed from broadcast networks won’t command all of the dollars that are flowing into Web video.

AOL’s TV Squad called Nite Fite “very funny, and one worth setting a bookmark for.” NewTeeVee wrote:

Nite Fite is a fun, well-executed concept you’d want to watch even if candy weren’t telling you to do it. Animated dork humor that goes down easy. Sweet tooth optional.

But most importantly to us, all three episodes of Nite Fite so far have an average rating of five stars on both YouTube and the Nite Fite site, and comments are overwhelmingly positive. Nite Fite has already been featured by the editors of YouTube, iTunes, and Yahoo! Video, and by some of our favorite blogs including Drawn! and Cold Hard Flash.

Thanks to everyone who’s spread the word and helped us get this series rolling — we’ve got a lot of great episodes on the way, and this is just the beginning. Stay tuned to Nite Fite’s newly created Twitter feed, Facebook fan page, and blog for more updates, and if you’re in NYC, we hope to see you Thursday nite, where we’ll premiere some of the show’s upcoming episodes.

If you watch any of our networks you’ve probably seen the promos for NITE FITE, our new series, which went live today, and will be available across our entire super-distribution network. The team here’s also put together a great new website for you to join the fite. Here’s the first episode, Sell Out:

NITE FITE is the first animated talk show on the web — an original animated series from Dan Meth and Mark Vitelli. Nite Fite’s hosts, Penalty and Lloyd, promise non-stop hard talk (and intensity!) every week. The initial run is for 20 episodes, through November, with a sponsorship from Starburst. We’re really excited to have them on board — and as of this week, you can sneak preview the first three episodes of the series at Starburst’s brand new website. Just look for the link for NITE FITE on the main menu, after the introduction.

Co-creator Dan Meth recently finished his initial run of The Meth Minute 39 on Channel Frederator, which was a massive success, with over 20 million views over 39 weekly episodes, and we’re really excited to work with him and Mark on the new series. The series is actually a spin-off, based on Meth Minute 39’s fifth episode.

We hope you’ll check out the show today at your favorite video destination, and if you like it, please rate it, favorite, subscribe and tell your friends! We’ll have new episodes every Thursday nite at 11pm.

After the jump: watch a video of Dan Meth launching Nite Fite this morning. (more…)