YouTube reportedly paid record sum for new ‘Justin Bieber: Seasons’ docuseries

Courtesy YouTubeJustin Bieber’s expansive, 10-part docuseries, which debuts on YouTube on January 27, reportedly cost the streaming platform a record $20 million, Variety reports.

The series, titled Justin Bieber: Seasons, will consist of two new episodes per week for five weeks, and Variety says each episode cost YouTube upward of $2 million.  That’s believed to be the most the platform has ever paid for content, but competition caused the price to skyrocket, according to Variety.

It’s no wonder, though, that YouTube wanted to be the platform to present the documentary: It’s where Justin began his career and where he was eventually discovered.

Justin Bieber: Seasons comes in the wake of Apple+ spending $26 million for a Billie Eilish documentary, Amazon shelling out $25 million for a Rihanna documentary, and Beyoncé‘s $30 million deal with Netflix.

As the Hollywood Reporter recently noted, there’s currently a huge boom in music-related documentaries, with one buyer saying, “It’s a land grab right now. Every producer is trying to figure out what artist is next for a doc that will spark an eight-figure sale.”

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