Angry Birds, formerly known as RovioMobile, is the YouTube channel maintained by Finnish video game developer Rovio Entertainment, who created the popular Angry Birds game series. This channel first uploaded videos of their games' trailers as well as walkthrough videos for the original Angry Birds, but later on, they also upload various content, ranging from original series, video compilations, and other miscellaneous topics. This channel also hosts original Angry Birds-related animated series that were originally available in the now-defunct VoD service Toons.TV, which redirects to this channel.
Rovio Entertaiment[]
Rovio Entertainment was founded in 2003 by Helsinki University of Technology students Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert. After winning in a mobile game development competition, they set up their own company called Relude. After getting support from a business angel, the company changed its name to Rovio Mobile, where "rovio" translates from Finnish as "pyre".
In October 2011, they acquired a Helsinki-based animation company to create a series of short videos. Their animation and publisher division was then acquired in March 2017 by Kaiken Entertainment, which was founded by former CEO, Mikael Hed.
Sometime in 2011, they changed their name again to Rovio Entertainment.
History[]
Early days and Angry Birds[]
Back when the channel started as Rovio Mobile, they mostly upload gameplay videos and trailers for their mobile games, notably the Darkest Fear trilogy. The first trailer for Angry Birds didn't come until December 2009 and has amassed 45 million views since then. They later posted walkthrough videos for their Angry Birds games until they started creating promotional animated shorts.
On February 2010, a cinematic trailer for this game was then uploaded, and since then, they created animated shorts for any of their upcoming games. The first proper animations were considered to be the promotional shorts for Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Space, whose art style is now used in most of its animated content. Most of their content now revolves around promotional content and animated shorts for Angry Birds games then.
Toons.TV content and original music[]
Rovio Entertainment revealed Angry Birds Toons, an animated series featuring its characters. To watch this series, viewers have to watch it through Toons.TV, a VoD service available only in most of Rovio's games. A short clip of each episode was uploaded one day before its broadcast on this channel. Two more animated series, Piggy Tales and Angry Birds Stella, were also released through this service, although Piggy Tales' episodes were never teased like that as they were uploaded on this channel 6 days after it broadcasted in Toons.TV. Another animated series, Cuppy, was also in the works, but it never continued for more than two episodes.
Besides having a bunch of animated series, they also occasionally uploaded music videos. Very few of them have indirect or no relation to the Angry Birds franchise such as Fly Me Home Tonight and Reach The Stars, while some are collaborations with other music artists such as Apocalyptica. Some of them were branded as "Bad Piggies Records", though it was only cosmetic in the video itself.
The Angry Birds Movie period[]
On September 2015, the first trailer for The Angry Birds Movie was released, and has gained a total of 37 million views. To fuel up the success, they released a video before a few weeks of December 2015, in which the hatchlings from the movie attempted to sing Deck The Halls, and it went viral.
Other videos were still uploaded as usual, but after the last season of Angry Birds Toons and Angry Birds Stella, the videos now feature either promotional shorts or clips from the movie, as well as behind the scenes. This also leads to the release of the third season of Piggy Tales and Angry Birds Blues, both based on the style of the Angry Birds Movie. All of the content now prominently focused on the Angry Birds Movie itself and its characters, with occasional vlogging or miscellaneous videos.
The end of Toons.TV[]
From March 2017 onwards, all their original animated series' episodes that were available in Toons.TV were uploaded periodically on this channel, as Toons.TV was going to be shut down after a few months. Toons.TV shut down in August 2017, and all its original programming (not including third-parties and Nat Geo initiatives) were uploaded to their channel, with occasional compilations.
Original shows, vlogging, and video compilations[]
As of the closure of Toons.TV, new original shows were now uploaded on this channel and were not restricted to only just animation, like BirLd Cup, On The Run and Slingshot Stories. Occasional vlogging and other content like cooking and crafts became more common, all obviously themed on Angry Birds. The vlogs mostly feature two Rovio employees, Anna and Elsa.
Channel milestones[]
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
Subscriber Milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: February 17, 2014
- 2 million subscribers: November 24, 2017
- 3 million subscribers: April 11, 2019
- 4 million subscribers: June 19, 2020
- 5 million subscribers: September 13, 2021
Video View Milestones[]
- 1 billion views: February 18, 2013
- 2 billion views: June 10, 2015
- 3 billion views: July 4, 2017
- 4 billion views: March 27, 2019
- 5 billion views: August 20, 2020
- 6 billion views: July 26, 2021
- 7 billion views: August 2022